Omotesando Hills, Tokyo

Upon my return to Tokyo from Kyoto on October 7, I returned to Omotesando district. I had not understood the maps I had and wanted to check out retail architecture I missed earlier in my trip.

The Audi Forum in Shibuya is called the Iceberg. It was designed by Tokyo based British architect Benjamin Warner and completed in 2006.

To really understand this building you need a wide angle lens. Here is an image from this website.

The sleek Christian Dior store is by SANAA, winners of the 2010 Pritzker price this year. I missed the lecture by Kazuyo Sejima a few weeks ago in Shanghai, although I had tickets for it.

Here it is lit in red, a picture taken with a wide angle lens, from this source. OK, I need to get a wide angle lens.

The Burberry store is located in the Japanese Nursing Association Building by Kisho Kurokawa. He was the architect for the National Arts Center in Roppongi Hills, pictures of which I placed in the blog earlier.

Omotesando Hills was built in 2005. It was designed by Tadao Ando on a site of apartments built in 1927 in Bauhaus style. A small portio of the site has these apartments reconstructed. The complex has 38 apartments on the upper levels and 130 shops on lower levels.

Ando, and Japanese architects in general, are masters in detailing of concrete buildings. The construction companies there take the time to cure the material properly to give it a smooth finish.

"A river runs through it". Not knowing the technical aspects of this building, I don't know its purpose, but there is a channel of water running from the portion of the building with highest elevation, down the entire length of the front of the building. So there is a glass bridge at the entrance to each store. Some architects have used water captured from mechanical equipment and used it for water fountains, such as Legorreta did in the library of San Antonio, Texas. It's possible this is a similar idea.

Fun promotion.

The back of the building, with parking access.

The residential top portion cantilevers over the shopping floors.

This must be the section of the original Bauhaus-style apartments that was reconstructed.

The water that runs down the front of the building starts at this fountain.

Toyo Ito's Tod's building in Omotesando is a sleek L shaped building containing a boutique and offices. The facade mimicks the shapes of tall elm trees crisscrossing each other. The structure and skin is concrete and it provides column free space.

I was fascinated by the interior as well as the exterior. You can view photos of the interior in this website, but you have to tolerate their BIG watermarks.