Reloading the Imperial Hotel by Frank Lloyd Wright. Graphic Analysis and Virtual Rebuilding

The aim of the research was to study the Imperial Hotel, a well-known project by Frank Lloyd Wright, in order to reconstruct the virtual model of it and try to understand better the quality of the design, the organization of spaces, and the use of materials. We have to remember that in Japan earthquakes are very frequent and buildings are tested so much by these natural events. In fact the inaugural day of this architecture an earthquake struck the city of Tokyo, but it withstanded thanks to the plan organization and the construction techniques used by the author. The work started with documents’ analysis, the drawing of the geometry, the 3D digital modeling of the spaces, thanks to the study of design drawings, historical photographs and images related to the physical model present in the Meiji Mura Museum in Nagoya. A careful comparison was also conducted with some precedent works of the author in order to identify similarities and differences that could be useful to understand better the work. After this phase, there was the texturing of all the surfaces to obtain a realistic simulation of the great architectural system. Then we used the Global Illumination algorithms to simulate the real light of the configuration. At the end a digital video animation allows to visit virtually the spaces, to understand the quality of the project.