Fumihiko Maki on New National Stadium 2020 

a bit late (2 years lol) but I guess this should be discussed. Its because the context of this project was important. a non-Japanese female architect, zaha hadid won the design competition for the most important building for 2020. If you listen to her perspective of the story she thinks that she lost the bid because the clique of prominent male Japanese architects, kuma, tadao, maki, ito etc couldn't accept a non Japanese person doing the project because of xenophobia or jealousy and conspired against her by publicly saying it was too expensive, not Japanese enough, or that the project would be better suited to someone that understands the Japanese site and culture better (what maki says in this interview). Furthermore they convinced the large Japanese building contractors who are responsible for more than 90% of the construction in japan to not work with her. And because of all this controversy a new competition for the stadium was done which zaha lost. anyways Japanese architect, kengo Kuma is now making the new stadium and zaha went off and made more ridiculous designs that were actually built, showing it wasn't impossible like people said it would be and she died. The end.