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28 April 2006

Omote-sando Hills

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Omotesando, the main street of the Harajuku area, is Tokyo’s answer to the Champs-Élysées: a wide avenue of elm trees that changes character with the seasons.
This is the place for the lovers of fashion and luxury to saunter, a stroll that takes them past Palazzo Tod’s, designed by Toyo Ito, Prada Tokyo, by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, the flag buildings of Dior and Louis Vuitton, and the windows of Cartier – just a few of the sumptuous establishments you’ll find lining the street that has been called “a scintillating necklace Architecture has gifted to Fashion as a token of their fortunate international idyll.”
Omote-sando is the street of creativity and culture, an intricate maze of boutiques, residences, restaurants and cafes where the young and independent can find the freedom and space to express themselves and catch the eye of the huge number of visitors.

Last 11th February, this unmatchable example of urban lifestyle witnessed the inauguration of Omote-sando Hills, an imposing complex combining mall and residential dwellings that runs along the north side of Omote-sando for more than 250 m, occupying a quarter of the length of the entire street

The work is the result of the partnership between two of the most important figures in Japanese architecture, powerful construction magnate Minoru Mori, of Mori Buildings Co., creator of Rappongi Hills, and often accused of creating arid and soulless urban environments, and Tadao Ando, perhaps Japan’s greatest living architect, twice winner of the Pritzker Prize. Taking the place of the much loved Dojunkai Apartments, Omote-sando Hills
has radically altered the look of the area. Built in 1927 for residents made homeless by the terrible earthquake of 1923, the Dojunkai Apartments’ modernity represented the tension Japan felt towards the future, the frenetic optimism of reconstruction, a political current of democratic ideals.
As over the years they turned into boutiques, workshops, art galleries, and offices, with their unchanging exterior they came to be considered almost as a bulwark defending the identity of Omote-sando against the invasion of the big international brands and the dangers of cultural globalisation.

It’s not surprising therefore that Ando himself has tried to celebrate and respect the area’s urbanistic tradition: “When we began the project,” he explained, “we had two guiding principles. The first was to use underground space as far as possible, so that the building would be more or less the same height as the street’s elm trees. The second was to reproduce the gentle slope of Omote-sando inside the complex”.

Following these guidelines, half of the complex’s 12 floors are below ground, with the result that that the structure, which contains 93 commercial activities and 38 houses, is far bigger than its aspect from the street would suggest. In addition, to create a sense of continuity between the interior and exterior, the long walkway of shops, developing in a continuous spiral around a triangular atrium space illuminated from above, follows a gradient similar to the street outside, creating an Omote-sando within Omote-sando: an extension, a replica, within the complex, of the street outside.
The same sort of logic is applied to the exterior look of the building, an enormous glass wall, four floors high and 250 metres long, with the mall entrance providing the only interruption: a huge canvas designed to be lit up by light art and light games, partially equipped with electronic illumination, but on the whole a façade that conveys a general sense of sobriety and neutrality that respects the tradition of the area.

Posterity will judge whether Ando has succeeded in replacing Dojunkai Apartments, achieving an architectonic work that deserves to inherit its mantle as a symbol of modernity. What can definitely be said, however, is that Omotesando Hills is another important chapter in contemporary Tokyo’s ceaseless quest for transformation and innovation.