The View from Inside Toyo Ito's Mediatheque During the Japanese Earthquake

With chaos still enveloping Japan following that country’s massive earthquake last week, from afar we’ve all seen the terrifying, heartbreaking images and video shot both during the quake and its devastating aftermath. Christopher Hawthorne, the LA Times‘ resident architecture critic, wound up finding this amazing clip from during the original tremors, shot from inside starchitect Toyo Ito‘s Mediatheque, a building he calls one of the country’s “most significant pieces of contemporary architecture.” Fortunately, it appears that the building held during the quake and thus helped save the lives of those inside.