Way back when, in 2009, when we first visited Japan we visited an area called Roppongi. It was in the midst of a big redevelopment and new buildings were going up in a large planned community. Everything was very new and barely completed. We could see that there would eventually be shopping areas full of luxury stores. But it all felt quite unfinished. We were back in 2018 to visit the Mori art museum at the top of one of the towers. Things were filled in by then, but it still had a sense of echoing vastness. The scale felt wrong.
On this trip we headed off to see Azabudai Hills, the newest development by the same development company – Mori. It officially opened last November, but whole areas are still active construction sites and once gain the whole luxury shopping area mostly consists of what look like large shops with the windows covered in signs saying ‘Coming March 2024 – Bulgari. Or Chanel. Or Dior’.
When you come along the street from the subway station you are faced with this building:
Stock photo, artists conception.
Now, this is to be a whole new vision of a work/live community. As we walked up the road that goes up to the right we thought the whole design seemed strangely dated for something that was brand new. The curved portions of the buildings are not white, they are a tan coloured concrete. We could make no sense of what the forms were supposed to be and the materials and shapes chosen looked like they had been beamed in from 1984.
Another stock photo, artist’s conception.
It does not look like this at all – the trees have been planted but will be sticks for many years. Nothing is green as it is winter. But again with all these curved forms that do what? Go where? And then the central building, which is the highest in Tokyo at present and contains both commercial and residential areas, which looks so… ordinary….
We wanted to go to the 33rd floor where there was an observation area. This is not advertised but we figured how to get there.
And the view is amazing. Here is what you see when you stand looking down onto the 33rd floor which is the actual observation area:
I am standing on a huge staircase that leads to the lower level. The centre portion of the stairs are wide and are intended to be a seating area. Below me there are a few tables and chairs for people to sit at, but not for too long! The info on the website extolls their plans for new ways of working, of collaborative spaces where creative things will happen as people meet and interact. Sitting on the big staircase. As we were exploring this area on the other side of a small barrier was a group of about thirty people. Business people in business attire, getting a tour. I don’t know that much about Japanese business culture, but it doesn’t seem to me like the kind of companies that can afford the rent in a building like this are going to have their employees hanging out in public spaces, sitting on a fancy staircase to do their work. And the kind of companies that do the kind of collaborative work that would suit spaces like this won’t be affording this neighbourhood. Everything seemed too vast, cool and echoing. They did not feel like human sized spaces to me.
Leaving this new space we walked down the street towards the Roppongi subway station. This is a typical busy street, lots of restaurants, lots of office buildings, lots of people walking around, going places, doing things.
We were headed for lunch and here is where we wound up:
And it was a literal hole in the wall!
Our charming server Chihiro spoke excellent English and made recommendations to us – chicken soup with dumplings. Four giant dumplings in soup in a cast iron bowl that was heated to the temperature of the sun! We had to have special instructions so that we didn’t hurt ourselves eating it. And a plate of bite sized deep fried gyozas. And beer! This felt like human scale – a room where you could see what was happening, see a place that had been pounding out the dumplings for years, enjoy the history.
And clearly we enjoyed ourselves!!!
I found myself thinking of visits to Dubai, and to Putrajaya in Malaysia. Both places built on a grand scale, built to impress. And both feel soulless. And the reason is the scale is wrong. Tokyo seethes with life – the streets are busy, people are living their lives in full view. And maybe these new, planned communities will eventually have the ‘new’ sanded off of them and they will be places that fulfill the dreams of the developers, where people live and work and play. But right now – it doesn’t feel that way…
Where I'm At 