Tokyo is in the midst of a forward-looking moment. As the city readies itself for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the near term, its topology is changing at a rapid pace. Much of this change is happening around the Toranomon Hills business district in central Tokyo. There, Mori Building, a major Japanese real-estate company, is developing three towers: Toranomon Hills Business Tower, Toranomon Hills Residential Tower, and Toranomon Hills Station Tower. The company tapped OMA, the firm of architect Rem Koolhaas , to design the Toranomon Hills Station Tower, the plans for which were unveiled this month.
OMA’s new tower will include office, hotel, and retail space, and also serve as an important transit hub, as it welcomes a new Hibiya Line subway station directly underneath the building. The tower will include a modern pedestrian promenade, too, in the form of an elevated park linked to other nearby public spaces. As OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu said in a statement, the new tower will become a “key node that connects the new station to the other towers and the surrounding district.”
The interior of the new Toranomon Hills Station Tower.
Design for the structure is being overseen by OMA New York, which Shigematsu directs. The office has a string of high-profile projects currently underway, including the Pierre Lassonde Pavilion at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec; the Faena Arts District in Miami; and the design for “Manus x Machina,” the Costume Institute’s upcoming exhibition, in New York. The Toranomon Hills Station Tower is due to open in 2022, but partial subway service including the new Hibiya Line will begin ahead of the 2020 Olympics.
