MOC: Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant

[lisqr]

For one year anniversary of Japan's triple disaster.

Can you tell how many different shades of blue I used?

My Mocpage

Edited April 27, 2012 by Rufus
Indexed

[touthomme]

Wow, I really like this. So many great details. Excellent work!!

[Skalldyr]

Very impressive building, but a tough topic that you've chosen.

[lightningtiger]

Excellent creation 'liqsr' , even though it is from a dark day in Japan's history.

Brick On while still remembering those lost.

[def]

Honestly, it's a well-done model, but it rubs me the wrong way. It really seems too soon to do something playful about the subject. More than five times as many people died as did in 9/11, and I think a lot of people would have difficulty seeing that disaster built from LEGO, over ten years later.

I'm not Japanese, I've just been here a long time. I asked my (Japanese) wife what she thought and her first answer was, "最悪"

My two cents.

[lisqr]

Honestly, it's a well-done model, but it rubs me the wrong way. It really seems too soon to do something playful about the subject. More than five times as many people died as did in 9/11, and I think a lot of people would have difficulty seeing that disaster built from LEGO, over ten years later.

I'm not Japanese, I've just been here a long time. I asked my (Japanese) wife what she thought and her first answer was, "最悪"

My two cents.

I don't mean to offend the Japanese people. I apologize if I did. My cousin's currently studying in Japan (Tokyo). I was really worried about him last year at this time. So I wanted to build something for the anniversary. I guess I'm just not that sensitive and my choice was a bit harsh.

[Nightshroud99]

I don't think this is a very appropriate moc, especially if your commemorating the anniversary.

Though it is well done.

[Clone OPatra]

While this is a very nicely built MOC, as people have said, it's also quite distasteful. The biggest reason why is the wave. You don't commemorate a destructive event by portraying impending destruction, and especially not in LEGO, which by default makes things 'cutesy' (unless you really go out of your way to make something not 'cutesy,' but that takes a much larger scale). With the wave, this MOC is basically the equivalent of building the Twin Towers with an airplane flying towards one of them. That's not ok, and neither is this. The powerplant by itself might have been ok, but even then it's not a wholly tasteful commemoration, especially not so soon after the tragedy.

[LegoFan03]

I'm impressed. It is very well detailed. I am sorry but I think some of you guys are too sensitive. Obviously, lisqr didn't build this Lego to offend anyone. Get over it and move on. Great job, lisqr! :)

[Solscud007]

Just phenomenal.

[Hinckley]

I think it's a very nicely built MOC. I understand that, in retrospect, you feel you may have been insensitive, but since your intention was to commemorate an event that was close to you, I think you should not feel that way. Your heart was in the right place and you expressed it the way you knew how, through LEGO. Thanks for sharing it here.

[def]

I don't mean to offend the Japanese people. I apologize if I did. My cousin's currently studying in Japan (Tokyo). I was really worried about him last year at this time. So I wanted to build something for the anniversary. I guess I'm just not that sensitive and my choice was a bit harsh.

I don't think that's your intent, which is why I tried to be nice in the way I phrased things I don't think "My cousin is in Tokyo," is a justification though.

[Zzz]

Nice MOC, but the wave was unnecessary. It's like Cloney said, WTC is alright but with an approaching passenger yet or smoke coming out of the building? And it's not even about being Japanese or US. Having lived in Tokyo, having friends there, now working for a Japanese Company, I am not offended, neither want to speak for someone else. But seriously, when I saw the wave, I thought it's too much.

[robuko]

I think this is a nicely built model, but most Japanese people would find it in very bad taste at an especially sensitive time. I was in Tokyo in 3/11, and the stress of getting my family out after the first reactor blew is not a pleasant memory. The land side looks very realistic , but I do not think the wave is accurate. Almost everything I have seen showed it not as a wall of water, but as a tide that didn`t stop rising until it destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. There is a very very big debate in Japan as to whether the complex was damaged by the earthquake before the tsunami btw, so showing it whole is actually quite political and sensitive too, though I am sure you are not intending to make any statement on this.

[Vindicare]

I'm impressed. It is very well detailed. I am sorry but I think some of you guys are too sensitive. Obviously, lisqr didn't build this Lego to offend anyone. Get over it and move on. Great job, lisqr! :)

I think it's a very nicely built MOC. I understand that, in retrospect, you feel you may have been insensitive, but since your intention was to commemorate an event that was close to you, I think you should not feel that way. Your heart was in the right place and you expressed it the way you knew how, through LEGO. Thanks for sharing it here.

I agree, in so many words. I can see how this, especially the added wave, would affect Japanese people. I know for me and WTC, I don't even like to think about that day. But, I don't think I'd be upset about seeing say, a picture or a painting of the Towers, sans smoke(or in this case, wave). Maybe take away the wave, while overall a great build, it is a bit chilling. Definite thumbs up for the build and effort.

[viracocha]

I have seen pictures of the Fukushima after tragedy in the IEEE Spectrum magazine. Your MOC is illustrating the time just befor the disaster. I think it is very painful for the Japanese to comment your work.

[Ardelon]

Nice level of detail at that scale. Thought the trees look too big, i think maybe green cones (with brown studs at the bottom) would look better.

Im guessing four shades of blue.

While the wave does make it rather sinister, I dont think its in bad taste, anymore than, say, war MOCs. After all, when is it “late enough” to put something into LEGO? If anything, it keeps those of us unaffected by the tragedy from forgetting.

[Larrynautik]

I think that this representation of the catastrophe happening is esthetically well done, because it seems that this moment just before the worst happens is fixed for the eternity. It also shows the huge wave that is far more high than the sea wall constructed to protect the installation. It shows exactly the problem that will happen a few seconds after the action takes place. The basements are also a good representation of the power plant like it was before the catastrophe happened.

This MOC, like the architecture sets, is not really on the spirit of playing, but like a painting.

As I'm not japanese I can't know how it can be seen from a japanese point of view. The last big catastrophe we had in France recently is the accidental explosion of the AZF factory in Toulouse in 2001, killing 31 people, injuring 2500 inhabitants, and doing 2 billion euros of damages on buildings around. Most of the people had their homes hardly damaged by a blow equivalent to 100 tons of TNT. A lot of them had to leave the city and could never came back for economical reasons.

I know it's few compared to a 9/11 or a tsunami like the one you had. It was very painful to me when I saw this happening last year, because I feel very close to japanese culture and traditions. Some japanese cities were submerged by a 38 meters-high wave. I think we must express the commemoration of this event. It can be through a gift to help japanese people still in precariousness as a lot of them are still rehoused in mobile homes or irradiated areas now. It can be through a painting, a drawing, a Lego model. It can be by acting for that kind of tragedy to never happen again. It's what I've done by protesting against the use of nuclear energy, as the events in Japan show that it could never be fully controled. If we do not learn lessons from these events, it's like if they had never happened.

Dangerosity of the nuclear energy is one of these lessons, but there are other ones, like the need to re-evaluate the sea walls in Japan, the need to improve tsunami communications (most of the victims didn't knew a wave was coming), the need to strenghten the anti-seismic buildings in a lot of countries, and also the need to improve people evacuation (a lot of people close to the power plant were let without means of leaving, as the number of buses sent for them was inappropriate).

As I consider that Lego bricks can also be an artistic medium, showing a event such like this one do not trouble me, but I can understand that my vision is not necessarly the universal one ; it's purely subjective, and depends on how you consider the things.

[Hinckley]

like the need to re-evaluate the sea walls in Japan,

Interestingly enough, the tide wasn't taller than the sea-walls constructed. However, the earthquake was so big it, not only shifted the Earth's axis, dropped the sea floor three meters, allowing the tide to surge over the walls. I don't remember if I have the specifics correct. It has been a year since I learned these facts, but the original construction of those sea-walls should have been tall enough to stop the tide that came in, according to the documentary I watched.

[Larrynautik]

Interestingly enough, the tide wasn't taller than the sea-walls constructed. However, the earthquake was so big it, not only shifted the Earth's axis, dropped the sea floor three meters, allowing the tide to surge over the walls. I don't remember if I have the specifics correct. It has been a year since I learned these facts, but the original construction of those sea-walls should have been tall enough to stop the tide that came in, according to the documentary I watched.

The sea wall of Fukushima Power Plant was designed for wave of 5,7 meters high.

The tsunami was 15 meters high.

This tsunami height analysis was done by two scientists, Shinji Sato from Tokyo University, and Harry Yeh, from Oregon State University (United States).

Two representants of the Fukushima prefecture and two guides accompanied them for measures along the devastated japanese coasts.

The whole Honshu Island (the main japanese island) moved from 2,4 meters to the east.

I saw a lot of documentaries on NHK and several french articles that explained how the catastrophe happened. That's why the wave taller than the sea wall in the MOC presented here is perfectly realistic.

Of course I don't pretend to know everything about science, and details can have been forgotten (like the Earth's axis move, and all the terrain movement undersea).

[Lyichir]

This is a fantastic MOC. I don't know whether or not it was in bad taste to MOC this, but as I see it this is about as sensitive to the victims as such a MOC can be. The detailed-yet-simple-yet-moving depiction of this reminds me of a journalistic photograph, and coming from a newspaper family I mean this as a high compliment. It would be neat to see more similar MOCs to this, depicting a current event as it does without satire but as a realistic, non-biased depiction of what took place.