ADK Shochiku Square
A glass-clad skyscraper with a theater-style lobby open to the city.
A few buildings down, the Kabuki-za Theatre, also facing Harumi Street, would later become a project we designed. Both buildings’ client was Shochiku, and the rich Edo-era kabuki culture that Shochiku has preserved over the years offered countless hints for the design of this tower.
Edo’s Kabuki theaters, unlike the opera houses that served as cultural centers for European nobility, were venues for ordinary people. They were light, unpretentious structures that fit seamlessly into the city.
To revive that spatial quality in a modern context, we designed the office building’s lobby as a kind of “wooden theater,” seeking to bring back the liveliness and warmth that Tokyo once had in the Edo period to the high-rise office environment.
