Exploring Azabudai Hills: A Look at Tokyo’s Future Cityscape

Azabudai Hills opened in November last year – a night view of the city from the observation deck on the 52nd floor of the Mori Tower located in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo, Japan. The tallest building in the picture is ‘Azabudai Hills’, a high density complex that opened in November last year. The red lighted building on the right is the Tokyo Tower, and the green radio tower in the distance on the left is the ‘Tokyo Sky Tree.’ /Roppongi Hills Observatory Facebook

I was in Minato-ku, Tokyo when the movie ‘Pamyo’ was starting to do well at the box office. I was on my way to the Mori Art Museum to see the exhibition of pop art master ‘Keith Haring’, but I took the wrong exit from the subway station and ended up in an unexpected place. Not the Mori Tower where the Mori Art Museum is located, but its cousin, the Mori JP Tower. In other words, it has entered the Azabudai Hills, a ‘city within a city’ that attracts the attention of the architectural world and the architectural world . real estate industry these days.

Azabudai Hills, where the British architect Thomas Heatherwick, known as the Leonardo da Vinci of this period, took part in the design, is a high density complex with three skyscrapers, including the 330m high JP Mori Tower. It is a ‘compact city’ where 1,400 households live in apartments with offices, hotels, shopping centres, hospitals, schools, art galleries, and restaurants, allowing people to work, learn, eat and sleep within 10 minutes. Most of all, it was so much fun to walk on two feet. It was said to be based on Salvador Dali’s successful work ‘The Persistence of Memory’, and the lines of movement leading from floor to floor and from building to building were surreal. I thought I was walking on level ground, but it was uphill, and when I opened the door on the 3rd floor basement, I was at ground level.

The white rice in pyeong 7,000 green space occupied the empty space between tall buildings. 320 types of trees grew in a terraced garden that took advantage of the topography of the steep hill, and a stream flowed in the central square. Passers-by took a bite of a 5,000 won crepe and admired the statues of Yoshitomo Nara and Olafur Eliasson. It was a place where ordinary citizens shared the private land of Geumssaragi, where 20,000 people worked during the day and 3,500 people cooked dinner and slept at night.

Azabudai Hills, which is considered to have introduced the appearance of a future city along with New York’s Hudson Yards, was completed by Mori Building Company, a Japanese real estate development company with ‘coexistence development’ as its motto. The Mori Company, which developed a two-track solution to urban overcrowding by constructing vertical buildings taller than 50 stories and securing green spaces, created Roppongi Hills, Toranomon Hills, and Azabudai Hills, reviving Tokyo, which had been stagnant due to the collapse of the bubble economy ..

What was most surprising was that most of the 20 to 30 years of development was devoted to persuading the indigenous people and meeting their needs. There is a famous anecdote where Chairman Minoru Mori knelt down to residents opposing the development of Roppongi Hills and appealed to them, saying, “I will not let even one person shed tears because of redevelopment.”

However, the real protagonist who made Mori’s legend possible was someone else. The Japanese government and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government have undertaken bold regulatory reforms and system improvements. It all started in 2002 when Prime Minister Koizumi abolished height restrictions in large urban areas and doubled the floor area ratio. The national strategic special zone project was also effective. The government provided full support to ensure that long-term urban development was not disrupted by unexpected regulations and financial risks. The ‘Urban Redevelopment Act’, which allows a one-for-one exchange of old and newly developed housing, protected indigenous people from the onslaught of big capital. That is why most of the native people of Roppongi Hills and Azabudai Hills managed to live a life without being kicked out of the places they have lived in since their ancestors. According to Professor Kim Kyung-min of Seoul National University, “This is the definitive urban development through collaboration between the public and private sectors,” but we had the bitter bankruptcy of the Yongsan International Business District, which was called “the Korean version of Roppongi. ,” because we could not achieve this.

I came back from Tokyo and watched the film ‘Bamyo’. I don’t agree with director Kim Deok-young’s criticism of ‘National Foundation War’ calling it a ‘left wing film’, but after watching the film, I understand his feelings. He was said to be an occult craftsman who created ‘Black Priests’ and ‘Sabaha’, but ‘Breakdown’ turned into a pro-Japanese break-up story about beating a samurai gang that had severed political ties on the Korean Peninsula. on the iron stake rumor that turned out to be false. When MZ shaman Hwarim said, “Japanese monsters, unlike Korean ghosts, are said to kill people at random,” he burst out laughing. It’s not a ‘Demon Slayer Blade’ either. Despite this, it remains a hit at the box office.

The night view of Tokyo seen from Shibuya Sky came to mind. It was so vivid it was scary. The Roppongi model, which the Japanese government and Mori succeeded in, expanded to transport hubs such as Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Nihonbashi, transforming Tokyo. I was even more alarmed by the news that the number of foreign tourists had exceeded 20 million due to the low yen, that Japan was resurgent as a semiconductor powerhouse, and that it was entering the golden age of real estate. Like Keith Haring, who declared ‘art for everyone,’ Tokyo is rushing into the future to be reborn as a ‘city for everyone,’ but are we the only ones who groan at being bound by the past ? What needed to be dug was not the grave of pro-Japanese people, but the trauma of Japan in us.

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