Around eleven this morning we were at the park for children near Shinomachi, when it happened that the wind was strongly blowing, scattering dust everywhere so we decided to change our Sunday place.
Since the Oedo line was there, I thought to go to Roppongi station where we could enjoy Tokyo Midtown and its interiors.
Once arrived there first we went to the near National Centre for the Art. It is designed by Kisho Kurokawa (1934-2007) and it opened in 2007. It has got a gorgeous facade and balanced nice interiors as instead of decoratives objects has iconic shapes. See the reverse cone with a restaurant on its top?
Inside are at least three different galleries and four places for eat. IN the underground floor there is the Gallery shop and a cheap eat in.
At the 3f loor a French style brasseries, they also have a menu for 2000yen which is very low price here, of course you can spend much more ordering champagne and so on.
At the second floor a cafe (patisserie) called Vogue after the magazine.
The easiest is the ground floor, just an ordinary cafeteria in a extra-ordinary space that add to your time a high comfort I believe.
Today with that strong wind, even if it was not cold, I could say it was one of the best place in Tokyo for having your meal made at home.
His office is well known for having projected several public projects around the world (even a new wing in the Van Gogh museum at Amsterdam) since the Metabolism movement, which it’s the most innovative architectural japanese wave during the modern time.
That was just our “bento” place for today, we’ll be back there May the 18th when the California Design Exibihition will open freely. Than we moved to Tokyo Midtown, a huge complex, finished in 2007.
Tokyo Midtown is not a name of a part of the city of Tokyo, it consists in several buildings (the Ritz Carlton Hotel is the main tower then a residence tower – the east one – a mall, resaurants, museums – one designed by T. Ando, one designed by K.Kuma, a japanese garden…), and there’s even a book about it (the link opens the amazon reference).
I would add anything more than my pictures. And a note about the exterior.
Since they are very close, Tokyo Midtown is always compared to another huge investment made by Minatu Mori (recently passed), few years before (2003) called Roppongi Hills . The two changed the Tokyo Skyline and they are a reference for all the others large investments.
On my small view I can see, even if are only a four years gap there is more than a generation, architectural talking, among them
For instance, if we are looking the exterior.
Roppongi Hills ( the web is plenty of pictures of it. I add just one here I took from the Tokyo National art centre to let the far reader recognize it). It is here below.
seems to belong to any megalopolis or metropolis around the world. It could be in London, New York, Toronto, Bejing, Sydney or everywhere, and the architect is American (Kohn Pedersen Fox based in New York City). The transparency of the coating is something that goes back to L. Mies Van der Rohe (1922 Friedrichstrasse skyscraper) until nowadays.
Tokyo Midtown, has a singular coating, and the architects have choosed to paint it as in the sametime leaving it transparent. I am posting some pictures here below on this detail.
The picture of the insides are from the Gallery (Mall) and I would add other video in the future as well as some picture of the japanese garden
this aside is the Ritzl Carlton Hotel concierge or main lobby.
cosmonauti a tokyo 