The Red Book [9781638402114]

Overview

This study revisits The Red Book, the foundational but long-overlooked research document that guided the conception of Festival Plaza for Japan’s Expo ’70.

This volume presents the first English translation of the Red Book, a little-known 1967 report that established the conceptual foundations for Festival Plaza, the iconic centerpiece of Expo ’70 in Osaka. Produced by an extraordinary team of architects, artists, engineers, computer scientists, musicians, and writers, the report proposed a radically new model of adaptive urban space. It captures 1960s Japan at a moment of bold experimentation, when traditional festivals were reimagined as spatial strategies and local cultural knowledge intersected with cybernetics, media theory, and experimental performance. The result was a vision of a managed yet interactive environment poised between human agency and technological control. The volume challenges dominant narratives of Expo ’70 and expands the cast of protagonists in postwar architectural history. At a time of renewed debate around responsive environments and the future of public space, it offers a timely and provocative account of how past futures were collectively imagined, engineered, and staged.