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Shiseido Headquarters Renovation, Ginza, Tokyo, Japan
Client : Shiseido Co., Ltd.
Project Location : Ginza, Tokyo, Japan
Architect : Architect Albert Abut/Atlantis Associates Architects . Planners
AA Project team : Tamaki Oguro, Masayuki Hata, Kenji Nakatsuka
M & E Engineering : P T Morimura & Associates
Structural Engineering : ACT
Light Planners : MGS
General contractor : Shimizu Construction
Photos : Nacasa & Partners
Open : October 1999
Shiseido Plaza
Commissioned during the planning of the French restaurant L’Osier (also commissioned to Albert Abut by Shiseido) sited on the extreme edge of the lot and integrated as well in the overall scheme, this project was to give a new face to the cosmetics giant Shiseido’s 8,000 m2 headquarters grouped in three completely different looking adjacent buildings on the famous Namiki Dori street (equivalent to the rue de la Paix in Paris) in the Ginza area.
The company was founded in 1872, permanently rehabilitating offices also in the 1980’s and 1990’s. While providing new public spaces where it can display new products of its patron activity in the cosmetic field, the work ties together and connects these three existing buildings as well internally as externally at the street level through a complex system of contemporary architectural components integrating beginning of 20th century architectural details ? a time when Shiseido created it’s image based on French art-deco researches of the same period ? giving to the new ensemble a gblade runnerh out of epoch look.
Internally, the entrance hall (previously at the eastern building ground floor) and all of the three buildings’ horizontal access and circulation system has been remodeled and centralized at the middle of the building. The vertical accesses to the upper floors and horizontal circulations at upper floors also have been rerouted more efficiently. The renovation works have been executed in phases without stopping company activities, just by moving divisions within the three buildings.
Horizontality and Verticality
Externally, the three different structures are bind together through a horizontal and a vertical movement. Two lines on the four main cardinal directions, one horizontal north-south and the other vertical east-west, mark Shiseido’s presence in this stretch of the street. One of the main features to link horizontally the three facades is a sand-blasted opalescent glass. Inspired by the gobih, the thick belt made of finely embroidered fabrics women wear around their waists over the traditional Japanese kimonos, this belt wraps literally these buildings (with a Namiki Dori street side length of 56 m). Signing the new image of the headquarters, the light green opalescent glass gives to the whole complex a horizontal movement, further enhanced in the evening by optical fiber networked lighting points. By contrast of materials used, the gobih seems to be floating over a heavier masonry work. At time, simply flat, it also includes for the central building’s entrance French gLensh stone panels that had been carved at the famous Sekigahara stone factories with a 6 mm diameter water jet such as to design the organic pattern of willow which grew in the old swamps on which is built today the entire Ginza district. Used to mark the window showcases on both sides of the main entrance, its texture and color give also a certain unity to the complex.
To differentiate the gworking zoneh from the grestaurant areah, the gobih affects a different look. It is then completely gtransparenth at the restaurant area to allow visibility of a set back from the street as a gpocket parkh ? very rare in this part of the city - with a serial of small green parterres. This pocket park is also in the continuity of the showcases with an exterior theme corner where temporary trees and/or sculptures are exhibited marking season changes, a traditional Japanese festival or a new trend announcement of the company’s new line of products.
Rising from this green oasis expressing the aim of the company to give never-ending freshness to the human skin, in the middle of this concrete city, a vertical panel made out of painted glass holds the company logo at the junction of the restaurant and the working zone area. A similar system had also been used to cover the complete facade of the building sited in the middle.
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