is a 569,000-square-meter (6.1 million sq ft)
mixed-use development
Mixed-use is a kind of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning type that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions are to some ...
in
Akasaka, Tokyo
is a residential and commercial district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan, located west of the government center in Nagatachō and north of the Roppongi district.
Akasaka (including the neighboring area of Aoyama) was a ward of Tokyo City from 1878 to ...
, Japan. Completed in March 2007, the $3 billion (¥370 billion) project includes office, residential, commercial, hotel, and leisure space, and the new quarters of the
Suntory Museum of Art. When completed, the
Midtown Tower
is a mixed-use skyscraper in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo. Completed in 2007, it is the tallest of the six buildings within the Tokyo Midtown complex, at , and was the tallest office building in Tokyo until 2014.
Construction
Located at the center ...
was the tallest building in Tokyo. The main building complex is surrounded by Hinokicho Park, a 10 acre public park containing green areas along with works of art.
The site takes up 78,000 square meters (19.4 acres) previously occupied by the
Japan Defense Agency in
Akasaka area of
Minato, along Gaien Higashi and close to
Roppongi Station
is a subway station in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, operated jointly by Tokyo Metro and Toei Subway.
Lines
*Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line (H-04)
* Toei Oedo Line (E-23)
Station layout
The Toei Oedo Line platform 1 is 42 meters underground, making this sta ...
, and less than a kilometer (half a mile) from the similarly scaled
Roppongi Hills
is a development project in Tokyo and one of Japan's largest integrated property developments, located in the Roppongi district of Minato, Tokyo.
Constructed by building tycoon Minoru Mori, the mega-complex incorporates office space, apartm ...
complex.
Development
The primary developer was
Mitsui Fudosan
is a major real estate developer in Japan. Mitsui Fudosan is one of the core companies of Mitsui Group.
Corporate structure
The company is organized into four divisions.
*Office Building Division
*Real Estate Solution Services Division
*Accommo ...
, working in concert with several partners. The project was designed by architectural firm
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel A. Owings, Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer Jo ...
;
Nikken Sekkei
Nikken Sekkei (日建設計) is an architectural, planning and engineering firm from Japan, with headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo. Today (2019), Nikken Sekkei ranks as the second largest architectural practice in the world.
Staff and Offices
As o ...
is the local architect of record. Landscape architecture of the surrounding new 40,000 m² (10 acre) public park was designed by
EDAW
EDAW was an international landscape architecture, urban and environmental design firm that operated from 1939 until 2009. Starting in San Francisco, the firm grew to become the most commercially successful and well-known landscape architecture and ...
, the Suntory Museum of Art by
Kengo Kuma
is a Japanese architect and professor in the Department of Architecture (Graduate School of Engineering) at the University of Tokyo. Frequently compared to contemporaries Shigeru Ban and Kazuyo Sejima, Kuma is also noted for his prolific writings ...
, and the design of the retail Galleria handled by the
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
-based
CommArts.
Buildings
![Tokyo Midtown Galleria B1 view 2013](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Tokyo_Midtown_Galleria_B1_view_2013.jpg)
*
Midtown Tower
is a mixed-use skyscraper in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo. Completed in 2007, it is the tallest of the six buildings within the Tokyo Midtown complex, at , and was the tallest office building in Tokyo until 2014.
Construction
Located at the center ...
is the second tallest building in Tokyo Prefecture at 248 meters (814 ft). It is the fifth-tallest in Japan, after
Yokohama
is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...
's
Landmark Tower
A landmark is a notable geographical feature or building.
Landmark, The Landmark, Landmark Building, or similar may also refer to:
Places
* Landmark, Manitoba, Canada
*Landmark, Arkansas, United States
* Landmark, Missouri, United States
Art, ...
,
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...
's
World Trade Center Building,
Izumisano
Izumisano ( ja, 泉佐野市, Latn, ja, Izumisano-shi, ) is a city located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 98,840 in 47658 households and a population density of 1700 persons per km². The total area of the c ...
's
Rinku Gate Tower Building
The is a tall skyscraper located in Rinku Town, Izumisano, Osaka, Japan. The 56-storey building was completed in August 1996 following the design of ' and Yasui Architects & Engineers. It is currently the third-tallest building in Japan, afte ...
, and the
Tokyo Skytree
is a broadcasting and observation tower in Sumida, Tokyo. It became the tallest structure in Japan in 2010[Hudson Soft
was a Japanese video game company that released numerous games for video game consoles, home computers and mobile phones, mainly from the 1980s to the 2000s. It was headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo ...](_blank)
.
*Midtown East
*Midtown West has the headquarters of
Fujifilm
, trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, biotechnology, and chemicals.
The offerings from th ...
and the headquarters of
Fuji Xerox
was a joint venture partnership between the Japanese photographic firm Fujifilm Holdings and the American document management company Xerox to develop, produce and sell xerographic and document-related products and services in the Asia-Pacifi ...
.
[FUJI XEROX Company Profile]
" Fuji Xerox
was a joint venture partnership between the Japanese photographic firm Fujifilm Holdings and the American document management company Xerox to develop, produce and sell xerographic and document-related products and services in the Asia-Pacifi ...
. Retrieved on July 12, 2010. The headquarters of Fuji Xerox moved to its current location on January 15, 2007.
*Parkside
*Midtown Front
*Midtown Gardenside (formerly known as Midtown West) will feature the Oakwood Premier Tokyo Midtown luxury serviced apartments.
*Galleria
Tenants
![Coverway inside Tokyo Midtown 201306](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Coverway_inside_Tokyo_Midtown_201306.jpg)
The 330,000 square meters (3.5 million square feet) of office space includes as its main tenants
Fujifilm
, trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, biotechnology, and chemicals.
The offerings from th ...
,
Fuji Xerox
was a joint venture partnership between the Japanese photographic firm Fujifilm Holdings and the American document management company Xerox to develop, produce and sell xerographic and document-related products and services in the Asia-Pacifi ...
,
Yahoo! Japan
is a Japanese internet company originally formed as a joint venture between the American internet company Yahoo! (later divested by Verizon into Altaba) and the Japanese company SoftBank. It is headquartered at Kioi Tower in the Tokyo Garden Te ...
,
Cisco Japan,
UNIQLO,
Nikko Asset Management Nikko may refer to:
Places
* Nikkō, Tochigi, a Japanese city and tourist destination
* Nikko Botanical Garden, operated by the University of Tokyo
* Nikkō National Park, in Kantō, Japan
Organizations, products, and services
* ''Nikkō'' ...
and
Konami
, is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company, video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machin ...
, as well as a medical clinic affiliated with the
U.S.
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
-based
Johns Hopkins Hospital
The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...
. The luxury 250-room
Ritz-Carlton
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC is an American multinational company that operates the luxury hotel chain known as The Ritz-Carlton. The company has 108 luxury hotels and resorts in 30 countries and territories with 29,158 rooms, in addit ...
Hotel occupies the 47th through 53rd floors of Midtown Tower, their first hotel in Tokyo, under a long-term lease arrangement. Other tenants include the international law firms
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy
Milbank LLP (commonly known as Milbank) is an international law firm headquartered in New York City. It also has offices in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, London, Frankfurt, Munich, Tokyo, Hong Kong, São Paulo, Seoul, Singapore, and Beijing.
H ...
and
Herbert Smith LLP.
The 5-floor retail Galleria, with 73,000 square meters (786,000 sq ft) of stores, restaurants and shops includes the first
Terence Conran
Sir Terence Orby Conran (4 October 1931 – 12 September 2020) was an English designer, restaurateur, retailer and writer. He founded the Design Museum in Shad Thames, London in 1989 The British designer Thomas Heatherwick said that Conran ...
restaurants in Japan, a wine bar (Coppola's Vinoteca) showcasing the wines of
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five A ...
, and an outlet of high-end American food retailer
Dean & DeLuca.
21_21 Design Sight
Tokyo Midtown is also the home of
21 21 Design Sight, a design gallery/workshop created by fashion designer
Issey Miyake
was a Japanese fashion designer. He was known for his technology-driven clothing designs, exhibitions and fragrances, such as '' L'eau d'Issey'', which became his best-known product.
Life and career
Miyake was born on 22 April 1938 in Hirosh ...
and architect
Tadao Ando. "The idea was to create not only a museum that shows exhibits," says Ando, "but also a place for researching the potentiality of design as an element that enriches our daily life, a place that fosters the public's interest in design by arousing in them different sights and perspectives on how we can view the world and the objects surrounding us."
[From "Sight of the Times" by Gordon Kanki Knight, '']Wallpaper*
''Wallpaper'', stylized ''Wallpaper*'', is a publication focusing on design and architecture, fashion, travel, art, and lifestyle. The magazine was launched in London in 1996 by Canadian journalist Tyler Brûlé and Austrian journalist Alexander ...
'', Issue #98 (April 2007) The building, designed by Ando, is on the edge of the park area, and features 1,700 square meters (18,300 sq ft) of floor space, including two galleries and an attached cafe run by chef and restaurateur
Takamasa Uetake. The split-level concrete structure includes a hand-sanded steel roof (whose design was inspired by Issey Miyake's A-POC ("A Piece of Cloth") concept) and 14-meter (46 ft) long glass panels.
History
The site of Tokyo Midtown was the home of the
Mōri clan
The Mōri clan (毛利氏 ''Mōri-shi'') was a Japanese samurai clan descended from Ōe no Hiromoto. Ōe no Hiromoto was descended from the Fujiwara clan. The family's most illustrious member, Mōri Motonari, greatly expanded the clan's power ...
during the
Edo period
The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...
. In 1873 the
Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
established a camp on the site, which became home to units of the
1st Division following the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
. In 1946, the United States Army took over the site and it was re-purposed as officer housing. The site was returned to Japan in 1960 and became known as Camp Hinokicho (
JGSDF
The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force ( ja, 陸上自衛隊, Rikujō Jieitai), , also referred to as the Japanese Army, is the land warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Created on July 1, 1954, it is the largest of the three service b ...
parlance) and Hinokicho Air Base (
JASDF
The , , also informally referred to as the Japanese Air Force, is the air and space branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, responsible for the defense of Japanese airspace, other air and space operations, cyberwarfare and electronic warfare. ...
parlance), housing the headquarters of the
Japan Defense Agency and various other command and control functions for the
Japan Self-Defense Forces
The Japan Self-Defense Forces ( ja, 自衛隊, Jieitai; abbreviated JSDF), also informally known as the Japanese Armed Forces, are the unified ''de facto''Since Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution outlaws the formation of armed forces, the ...
for the next forty years.
In 1988, the Japanese government authorized a large-scale relocation of various government agencies in order to re-develop prime government land for commercial purposes. As part of this plan, it was decided in the 1990s to move the JDA headquarters and re-develop the site. The base was formally closed in May 2000 and its functions were relocated to
Ichigaya
is an area in the eastern portion of Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.
Places in Ichigaya
*Hosei University Ichigaya Campus
*Chuo University Graduate School
* Ministry of Defense headquarters: Formerly GHQ of the Imperial Japanese Army; following W ...
. A consortium of developers including
Mitsui Fudosan
is a major real estate developer in Japan. Mitsui Fudosan is one of the core companies of Mitsui Group.
Corporate structure
The company is organized into four divisions.
*Office Building Division
*Real Estate Solution Services Division
*Accommo ...
,
Sekisui House
is one of Japan's largest homebuilders. It was founded on August 1, 1960 and is headquartered in Osaka. In 2009, Sekisui House expanded into Australia and Russia before expanding into China and the United States the following year.
The company ...
, and several life insurance companies won a public tender to purchase the site, paving the way for its development as Tokyo Midtown. Construction began in 2004 and was completed in 2007.
See also
*
List of tallest buildings and structures in Tokyo
Tokyo is the most populated of Japan's 47 prefectures. In Tokyo, there are 53 buildings and structures that stand taller than 187 metres (614 ft). The tallest structure in the prefecture is Tokyo Skytree, a lattice tower th ...
References
External links
Official site in English*
Tyler Brûlé
Jayson Tyler Brûlé (born November 25, 1968) is a Canadian journalist, entrepreneur, and magazine publisher. He is the editorial director of '' Monocle''.
Early years
Jayson Tyler Brûlé is the only child of Canadian football player Paul Brul ...
"Tokyo urbanism project is hard to top" the ''
International Herald Tribune
The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said ...
'', 13 April 2007
{{Coord, 35, 39, 57, N, 139, 43, 52, E, display=title, region:JP-13_type:landmark_source:dewiki
Akasaka, Tokyo
Buildings and structures completed in 2007
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill buildings
Skyscrapers in Tokyo
Buildings and structures in Minato, Tokyo
Mitsui Fudosan
Redevelopment projects in Japan
2007 establishments in Japan
Mixed-use developments