Ando and Miyake Collaborating on Tokyo Mega-Complex

TOKYO—Two of Japan's top architects and designers said Thursday they were coming together to build Tokyo's latest mega-complex of shops, offices and residences in a bid to boost the capital's global profile.

Named "Tokyo Midtown" after the bustling center of Manhattan, the 54-storey project will be built in the former seat of Japan's Defense Agency in Roppongi, an area known for its rowdy nightlife that is quickly going more upscale.

The ¥380 billion ($3.4 billion) complex slated to open in spring 2007 will mark the first collaboration between renowned architect Tadao Ando and top fashion designer Issey Miyake.

They told a press conference that they will build together "21/21 Design Sight," a center for the advanced study of design and art over a four-hectare (10-acre) of green space adjoining the tower.

"We named the place to mean looking beyond perfect eyesight," Miyake told a press conference.

Developers announced that a number of firms have agreed to set up offices in Tokyo Midtown including Fuji Photo Film, Fuji Xerox and Yahoo Japan.

The complex, which has 569,000 square meters (6,122,000 square feet) of floor space, will also become the new home of the Suntory Museum of Art, which collects Japanese arts and crafts.

"Japanese people have a great consciousness of beauty because the Japanese have nurtured their sense of beauty through things such as Kabuki (theater) and Japanese gardening," said Ando, whose works include the Church on the Water on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

"By expanding that consciousness of beauty, Japan, an economic power, will be able to show a strong identity to the world in design," Ando said.

The project is the latest large complex to be built in Tokyo amid receding concern about the free-wheeling property speculation before the collapse of the so-called "bubble economy" in the early 1990s.

Not far from the future Tokyo Midtown, the sprawling Roppongi Hills opened in spring 2003, adding a touch of glitz to the neighborhood. The complex remains one of Tokyo's top shopping areas two years after opening and features a multiplex cinema.

Elsewhere in Tokyo, the Shiodome towers on former rail yards along the bay are now home to the electronics giant Matsushita, Japan's top advertising agency Dentsu and other big names.

"We are trying to develop the international position of the city of Tokyo and keep it an attractive city," said Koichi Omuro, executive vice president of Japan's biggest real estate firm Mitsui Fudosan, one of six partners building Tokyo Midtown.

A mega-complex of shops, residences and parking is also slated for completion in January right on Omote-Sando, one of Tokyo's fanciest shopping streets.

The series of major projects has drawn some criticism that Tokyo is slowly transforming into a series of shopping malls like a US suburb, but others contend that well-designed complexes can benefit the city economically.

Masato Hisatake, a senior fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry, said complexes such as Tokyo Midtown highlight strengths by showing off Japanese cultural assets alongside commercial space.

"Tokyo still has the competitive edge in business compared with other major Asian cities such as Shanghai, which will take another 10 to 20 years to catch up," he said.

"To me, it looks like Tokyo is moving ahead to find new charm," he said.
Copyright AFP 2005
Tadao Ando image courtesy of the artist. Issey Miyake image: Michel Euler/AP PHOTO

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