Without Zaha Hadid’s stadium in Tokyo, the Sympathy Tower would never have existed

A Tokyo suspended between reality and fiction, “neither empathetic nor courageous,” where a new tower reflects Zaha Hadid’s legacy. A visionary novel, winner of Japan’s most prestigious literary prize: author Rie Qudan tells Domus about it.

There is another Tokyo. Of course, there are many, but this one has something the others don’t. The incredible, futuristic stadium designed by Zaha Hadid as a jewel of Olympic Tokyo. To some, it’s just “an expensive pile of concrete,” but to many it’s a symbol—an extraordinary project, misaligned with tradition, which unleashed possibilities that would have otherwise remained dormant in the city. That’s how it appears to Makina Sara, an architect at that moment in her career when one is on the verge of entering the Olympus of starchitects.

She’s the one behind the project that will mark a new era for Tokyo: a tower of empathy, inspired by the book Homo Miserabilis by renowned sociologist Seto Masaki: according to him, contemporary society needs symbolic structures that stimulate mutual identification, proposing a “theory of the tower” inspired by the prison as a space for observing and recognizing the emotions of others. He too owes much to Zaha Hadid. “Thanks to Zaha Hadid’s genius, I was able to complete my work. If the National Stadium hadn’t been built, I wouldn’t have finished the book,” he said at the project’s launch.

Rie Qudan, Sympathy Tower Tokyo, 2025, Penguin Books

The only issue? In our world, that stadium was never built. Instead, a far more traditional one, aligned with Japanese sensibilities, was realized—designed by Kengo Kuma. But for Rie Qudan, author of Sympathy Tower Tokyo, winner of the Akutagawa Prize—Japan’s top literary award—that doesn’t change much. “I don’t think there’s much difference between the Tokyo in my novel and the real Tokyo,” she tells Domus in an email interview arranged by her Italian publisher, L’Ippocampo. “Neither city is particularly empathetic or courageous,” she adds bluntly. Even the project at the heart of the novel—or one of its many focal points in a relatively slim volume—is ultimately a chimera.

The Tower of Empathy

Rie Qudan tells Domus that the starting point for her novel was a specific event: the assassination of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July 2022. His killer was a former soldier who claimed to be seeking revenge for the financial ruin of his family. The attack shocked Japan, a country unaccustomed to political violence. “Now, three years later, no one talks about it anymore,” says Qudan. The story had struck public opinion deeply. Some even felt sympathy for the assassin. “But it was sympathy, not empathy,” Qudan stresses. One question from the event stayed with her: “Should we feel compassion for the attacker, given his tragic circumstances?”


The vision of empathy proposed by Seto Masaki and transformed into architecture by Makina’s project is the speculative backdrop for a different Japan. In the novel, at times, the architect takes on the role of a demiurge. “Democracy can’t foresee the future. I can,” Makina says at one point. In this vision, Zaha Hadid takes on a symbolic role, almost a divine figure. “You are the future, Makina. Don’t forget Zaha’s lesson.” The architect becomes a guide for the city. A seer. A bearer of enormous responsibility. “The mistakes of architects can haunt the future,” reads one passage. To prepare for the novel, Rie Qudan did extensive research. “I’ve always been interested in architecture,” she says, recounting how she read many writings by Japanese architects to write Tokyo Sympathy Tower—and, of course, Zaha Hadid. “The strong will to build the future that shines through in these real architects also reflects in my protagonist’s personality.”

Zaha Hadid was known as the ‘Queen of the unbuilt’, those projects that for some reason remained ideas [...] Hadid had enormous talent, but her ideas were so ahead of their time that reality couldn’t always accept them.

Rie Qudan

Visible Buildings, Invisible Words

Rie Qudan is a writer who constructs spirals of meaning; in her pages, everything is layered, sublimated, re-signified. So one feels in the novel “the influence that architects and buildings exert on our perception of the world.” But the author went even further, orbiting into a different mental space. “I also started thinking about the relationship between visible constructions and invisible words.” Tracing an ideal line that connects architects and writers alike, she embraced the concept of the “unbuilt.” It’s a common thread between the career of this young Japanese writer—now 35—and that of Hadid, who would have turned 75 this year. “Zaha Hadid was known as the Queen of the unbuilt,” reads the novel, “those projects that for some reason remained ideas.” “Hadid had enormous talent, but her ideas were so ahead of their time that reality couldn’t always accept them.” Just like in our world, where we may still be waiting to understand the future Zaha Hadid envisioned.


Another theme connecting Hadid and Qudan is artificial intelligence. The Anglo-Iranian architect revolutionized architecture by embracing computers and parametric design. Even today, Zaha Hadid Architects is one of the most technologically advanced firms, developing architecture that lives both in physical and digital spaces, between augmented reality and virtual worlds. In Tokyo Sympathy Tower, the author introduces an AI character and openly admits that she had parts of the book written by ChatGPT, drawing widespread criticism—if you’d heard of the novel before this article, chances are it was because of its use of AI.

“I want to face the completely unknown”

More recently, the author took things further by participating in a project for the renowned Japanese magazine Kokoku, which asked her to write an article composed 95% by AI. Could an AI be the Zaha Hadid of the future? Qudan tested the AI, concluding that it remains just a tool. She tried to make it “write a story guided by its own desire, not mine,” she explains. “But unfortunately, that goal wasn’t achieved,” she adds. “AI is trained to fulfill the desires of the person interacting with it,” and as long as that’s the case, “it will remain just a tool.” However, this experiment helped the writer understand what truly drives her creative process.

Rie Qudan, author of Tokyo Sympathy Tower. Photo SHINCHOSHA

“Leaving my name to posterity isn’t important to me,” she tells Domus. “What truly matters—what brings me the deepest joy—is the process of creating something, regardless of the result.” And when asked how she thinks readers outside Japan will react to her work, she says she has no idea—and seems not to care. “I don’t want to write things that feel designed to be liked,” she says. What she wants, she explains—what she’s always wanted, even as a child—is simply to write. “I want to face the completely unknown.” One wonders if one day the unknown that Rie Qudan writes about will become our reality—just as Zaha Hadid’s might have been.

Opening image: Zaha Hadid, design for the New National Stadium, Tokyo, Japan. Renderings: Zaha Hadid Architects