Tokyo's tallest skyscraper an aesthetic focus

Tokyo's tallest skyscraper an aesthetic focus

Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura

Friday, March 30, 2007

Tokyo today opens to the public its tallest skyscraper, featuring top-notch shops, restaurants and even a hospital as the metropolis tries to project a slicker, sexier image than its rising Asian rivals.
Tokyo Midtown, built on what used to be the Defense Agency headquarters, is the latest giant urban complex to transform the downtown area of the world's most populous city.

Rising 248 meters, the central tower of the pentagonal complex is the city's tallest structure apart from the uninhabited Tokyo Tower.

Besides 132 shops and restaurants, the new site features a Ritz-Carlton - the most expensive hotel in an already expensive city - and a medical center affiliated with Baltimore's prestigious Johns Hopkins University.

It also includes the Suntory Museum, the second major new art gallery to open in Tokyo this year, and pricey condominiums.

The designers said Tokyo Midtown is meant to show a more sensitive, aesthetically aware side of Japan, the world's second largest economy.

"Through Midtown, we aim to turn Tokyo into the center of intellectual creativity for business and culture in Japan, Asia and the world," said Hiromitsu Iwasa, head of Mitsui Real Estate in charge of the project. "We also want this area to be the centre from which Japanese values and aesthetic sense will be sent out to the world," he said.

A consortium of six companies built the 69,000 square-meter complex at a cost of 370 billion yen (HK$24.46 billion).

Rooms at the Ritz-Carlton will cost up to 2.1 million yen a night for suites at the top of the tower with a view of Mount Fuji.

"We will have no shortage of people coming in the doors," said Simon Cooper, president of the US-based Ritz-Carlton company, noting Japan's passion for luxury goods.

"It's the nightclub syndrome: the newest club is going to get visitors. Our challenge is to make that visit so exquisite that they want to come back."

In one corner of Tokyo Midtown is the 21-21 Design Site, Japan's first institute dedicated to studying the creative process of design.

"Japan is essentially known as an economic powerhouse, and we want to show the world another face - one of design and aesthetics," said architect Tadao Ando, who developed 21-21 with fashion designer Issey Miyake.

Miyake hopes the institute will help change a society "solely focused on consumption."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE