Tokyo Midtown Tower

The symbolic tower of a large mixed-use development in Akasaka, built around greenery and art.

Use

Office tower

Area

Minato City

Completed

2007

Floors

54 above ground

Height

248 m

Developer

Mitsui Fudosan

A 54-story presence that repainted the Akasaka sky

Akasaka, Minato City, Tokyo. At the heart of Tokyo Midtown — a redevelopment of the former Defense Agency site completed in 2007 — stands this Tokyo Midtown Tower. With 54 floors above ground and a height of 248 m, this supertall office building led by Mitsui Fudosan has become a frequent reference point among examples of central-city redevelopment.

Akasaka, though in the city center, had long kept its distance from large-scale high-rise development. The sudden appearance of a 248 m tower there brought a visual impact in its contrast with the surrounding streetscape. Walking along Roppongi-dori or Gaien-higashi-dori, there are moments when the tower suddenly enters your field of view. It is a building that quietly makes you feel, in the midst of everyday life, that the city’s silhouette has been updated.

The context of the former Defense Agency site

Essential to discussing this tower is the context of the former Defense Agency site, which was the starting point of the development. A vast tract of state-owned land was transferred to the private sector and reborn as a mixed-use complex through redevelopment centered on Mitsui Fudosan.

A defining feature of this development is that the tower is positioned not as a self-contained building but as part of a mixed-use district that includes retail, cultural, lodging and park functions. As the office wing, Tokyo Midtown Tower carries the symbolic height of the whole district, and at the time of its completion in 2007 it was said to be the tallest building in Tokyo. That record has since been surpassed, but it still holds a strong presence among the supertall buildings of Minato City.

When you overlay the land use before redevelopment with the present form of the district, a question naturally arises about how urban land is inherited while changing its functions. As a symbol of that process — what kind of urban space emerged from the void left when the Defense Agency relocated — this tower continues to stand.

Summary

Tokyo Midtown Tower is an office building completed in 2007, with 54 floors above ground and a height of 248 m. Born within the clear context of Mitsui Fudosan’s redevelopment of the former Defense Agency site, it is more than a high-rise office building: it stands as an example that updated the urban structure of the Akasaka area in Minato City.

Rather than its height itself, looking at the building through the lens of how and by what path it came to be built there raises, I feel, the resolution of a city walk a little. When you walk Akasaka, by all means look up at the sky.