From Chuo-ku government office (1-1 Tsukiji), walk along the Metropolitan Expressway toward Shiodome.... At the base of the celebration bridge, you can see a building with a somewhat strange presence.
There are many ways to call this building, but it is "Old Dentsu Headquarters Building" (1-11 Tsukiji).
As the name implies, the building was headquartered until the advertising agency Dentsu moved to Shiodome in 2002.
The building was completed in 1967 by Kenzo Tange, a leading architect in Japan, and was designed by Kenzo Tange.
This building, in fact, was part of a very grand concept.
Kenzo Tange created a master plan called the Tsukiji Redevelopment Plan in 1964, three years before the completion of this building.
<Reference> Image of Tsukiji Redevelopment Plan
https://www.tangeweb.com/works/works_no-32/
(I fly to the homepage of Tange City Architecture Design)
The Tsukiji Redevelopment Plan is a grand concept that connects large-scale buildings to create a city like a single system.
Each building has a structure that allows the building to freely extend in height and lateral directions according to demand.
(By the way, Mr. Tange is also famous for proposing the concept of "Tokyo Plan 1960" that allows the city to extend to the sea on a larger scale.)
The former Dentsu headquarters building was originally planned to be part of this magnificent system.
The design has been changed due to construction costs, etc., and the original plan is slightly different from the actual construction.
Looking at the side of the building, you can see that it expresses the nature of "extending more and more" as seen in the Tsukiji Redevelopment Plan.
(Please see the photo below!)
① Inorganic walls with few windows that indicate that they are "cross-sections" on the way instead of the "surface" of the building.
② The beams are popping out a little, and it's going to extend it.
③ The window frame is cut off at half of a unit!
If you look like this, the building looks like it's really growing and it's interesting.
Although it is such an old Dentsu headquarters building, it is also characterized by the use of materials such as concrete and metal, and the finish of industrial products pursuing functionality. Then, the space without walls and pillars on the first floor can be seen by the influence of the French master Le Corbusier's idea of "liberating architecture from the ground." These are characteristics found in Modernism architecture.
This building is also one of the first cases in which a system called "specific block" was applied.
...Until then, the height of buildings was limited to 31 meters (approximately 100 feet) in large cities in Japan, except for a few exceptions, but the height restrictions were abolished due to the progress of building technology and high economic growth. In 1961, a system called "special block" was established in which heights can be set only within the block, and Japan's first skyscraper building, "Kasumigaseki Building" was linked to the building. The former Dentsu headquarters building is one of the first projects that were designated as a specific block on the same day as the Kasumigaseki Building.
It is about 60m high and is not a rare height in Tokyo now, but at the time of its completion, it would have symbolized Japan's rapid economic growth and the rise of urban areas in Tokyo.
The former Dentsu headquarters building, which conveys the architectural tide and social situation at that time, is now an empty building and we have heard rumors that rebuilding is planned soon.
If you go to think about the air feeling 50 years ago, it is now
