Building Rating 60% of readers like the Shiodome City Center.
Advertisement
A stellar effort at urban renewal, the Shiodome City Center helps finish the southern end of the Ginza corridor with a huge complex that serves as a demarkation point between the two neighborhoods. The skyscraper is mostly offices, but like many Tokyo towers upper and lower levels are reserved for shops and eateries.
Shiodome City Center sits askew on its plot, which helps provide some better views of the city and the harbor in what is ordinarily a tight spot. The glass is reflective blue-green which has been specially treated to create multipath problems with the TV signals coming off the nearby Tokyo Tower. Its facade is a smooth glass skin, occasionally interrupted by vertical channels which help divide the building into sections that make its varied roof line make sense. That glass curtain wall is important because the building has been specifically designed to maximize the views of its occupants. It is built around a central core to reduce the number of columns needed to support the building and afford panoramic views.
The Shiodome City Center is just one part of the larger Shiodome Sio-Site project -- a redevelopment of a huge parcel of land seven times the size of the Tokyo Dome. The idea is to turn a railroad freight hub into an urban town much like Nishi-Shinjuku where people can live, work, and play. Before this area was a rail yard it was an estuary. "Shiodome" means "place where the tide stops."
The building was designed by Kevin Roche.
There are four levels underground.
This building has 1,140,920 square feet of rentable space.
> This skyscraper was erected on the site of the first railway station in Japan. Old Shimbashi Station has been remodeled and still stands next to the new building. It is a replica of the original station.
John Tofflemire
Thursday, April 29th, 2010 @ 7:09pm
Rating: Four stars. Sorry, but the building in the picture is not Shiodome City Centre but rather the Dentsu headquarters building. City Centre, which is clad in green glass, is adjacent to the Dentsu building. Both buildings rank as among the best of the modern high rise buildings in Tokyo.
Add your corrections, comments, reviews, or thoughts about this
building. Simply fill out the form below.
Your name:
E-mail address:
Your nation:
Rate this structure:
15
Your comments:
Messages without valid e-mail addresses, or containing profanity
will be automatically discarded. You're wasting your time, not ours.
John Tofflemire
Four stars.