The Imperial Hotel rose up in the centre of the capital, on land owned by the Imperial House. The director Tetsuzo Inumaru was not satisfied by the profit brought in by the 280 rooms available. Already in 1936, 14 years after opening, a plan for demolition was developed. The deterioration of the materials and the negligent use of the spaces was the reason but the occasion was the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, to put up in its place a more modern hotel, 17 storeys high. A committee created to defend the building and the Yona Friedman’s proposal to Prime Minister Sato to, instead of demolishing, use the space above according to his theories of “spatial urbanism”, were of no use in stopping the bulldozers from arriving, after much procrastination, in December 1967.