Marunouchi

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Video editing: Grand Projet, 2017

The development of the Marunouchi area as Tokyo’s central business district started in 1890 when the land next to Imperial Palace was purchased by the Iwasaki Family (founder of Mitsubishi Group) from the government. In the early 20th century it was developed into a trading and business center with the urban layout and architectural language based on European examples. It experienced a first phase of densification and redevelopment during the 1960s when its function as the primary financial center in the city was consolidated. The Marunouchi area began to spatially and programmatically diversify in the 1990s when purely financially related businesses could no longer sustain and the importance of ‘urban quality’ emerged.

The Marunouchi area provides a fruitful case to study with its long planning history and vision development, and its gradual changes responding to new and shifting demands in the spatial realm as well as the management of a Grand Projet. It is the stable tenure situation within the 128 hectares site that allowed for a continuous planning effort with gradual adaptations which is in contrast to processes of ‘scrap and build’ that characterise the urban transformation of other parts of Tokyo.

Reference

Hanakata, Naomi C. 2019. ‘Marunouchi Tokyo, Continuous Update of a Modern Urban Vision’. In The Grand Projet: Understanding the Making and Impact of Urban Megaprojects, edited by Kees Christiaanse, Anna Gasco, and Naomi C. Hanakata, 53–104. nai 010 Publishers.