To the 21st Century’s Urban Renaissance

More than 10 years past since the global financial crisis, backed by the financial easing policy throughout the globe, the expanded public fiscal spending, and the bullish mindset in the corporate sector, gigantic scale of urban redevelopment projects are undergoing in Tokyo and Osaka. There are a couple of Japanese acronym for the strategic development initiatives led by major real estate developers. These typically includes, Tokyo station area, encompassing Otemachi, Marunouchi, Yaesu and Hibiya which should be one of the biggest business and financial hubs in the world, Roppongi and Toranomon area which have been initiated by a visionary urban producer Mori Building, and Shibuya which we are seeing the second wave of regeneration since its traditional city sub-center planning in 1960s. Just 10 years ago, Arata Isozaki, a Plitzker award winning architect, said Japan's property development projects are so small and humble compared with mega scale projects in Shanghai and Beijing. Now that Japan's projects are much bigger and more complicated in terms of their program and planning. Mitsubishi Estate is now working on a huge Otemachi Tokiwabashi redevelopment in front of Tokyo station, with its main tower being supposed to be the highest skyscraper in Japan when completed in late 2020s, with the gross floor area of 690k sqm, two times bigger than "Freedom Tower" in the World Trade Center rebuilding in New York. Rem Koolhas led OMA is participating in the design of Toranomon Station Tower, the final component of enormous Toranomon Hills development by Mori Building. Mori Building is also working on Toranomon Azabudai redevelopment with more than 860k floors for office, luxury residence, international school facilities and retail complex. In addition to these, we have a handful of mega-projects which has more than 500k sqm floors in Shinagawa and Hibiya.

It is surprising to see, in a rapidly aging economy in Japan, these spree of architectural and urban experiments of physical reconfiguration, which is much bigger than epoch making urban renaissance deals embodied in Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Midtown Roppongi in early 2000s. In Osaka, it is a more public transportation driven renewal led by a continuous inflow of inbound tourists and a few urban events, IR and Expo. More erotic and deep design mind and historic urban fabric and tradition embedded in an old great commerce city characterizes fascinating urban and architectural facade even in newly constructed buildings (see Kengo Kuma designed hotel project in ex-New Kabukiza site in Namba). On top of these mega scale construction, an unique combination of highly inter-connected public transportation network which is a "town in town" in multiple hub of the city, patchwork form of intimate neighborhood which we see in special features in fashion magazines in every week, is creating a fascinating archipelago within the entire city. It is the most differentiating aspect in Japan's megacities, relative to their bigger and stronger competitors, New York, London, Hong Kong, and Shanghai etc.

People have argued the globalization in terms of trade, finance, information, and human resources, have driven urban and regional development in the whole globe in decades. Actually, almost all maga cities in the world have created huge urban complex which have a boiler plate template of mixture of the state of the arts office space designed by KPF and SOM, a standard tactics of retail planning in which global luxury brand shops (Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Hublot), "GAFA station" (Apple Stores), and Starbucks are essential components of this, high-end residence where nobody actually lives, and global five star hotels. To gather ambitious young people from various regions and global elites in financial and tech industries, large scale transportation system has been built. To accommodate growing demands in regional cities, huge scale retail malls and logistics facilities also has to be constructed. We can see various models across China. It is today's "Global Architecture". It is supported by robust flow of funding by the inexplicable marriage of National Capitalism and global capital market. A handful of global architecture design firms are paying continuous effort of dressing up these muscular structure with a set of fancy exterior package. How boring to see these property development. While I am not saying Japan's architectural development gets over this monotony, Japan's urban renewal attempt back in 1980s are a sort of pioneering trend to today's global architecture and the period since then, almost forty years of experience to seek further sophistication and innovation in the planning program and design brought an unique competitiveness in a global context.

Lack of strong expression of eliteness and prowess in its form, projects in Tokyo and Osaka rather show a fascinating synergies with surrounding neighborhood with their distinctive strategy of retail tenant mix, which developers have been digging up from across the nation such as the first shop opening of Osaka based "okonomiyaki" restaurant in Tokyo and a small textile manufacturer originated from norther part of Japan, rather than bringing global luxury brands, and carefully designed architecture to be well-matched with the neighbors. In addition to new developments, many land owners are focusing on renovation or conversion effort of each unique existing structure into social apartments, community offices and whatever they are called. Indulgence in a daily life comfort, architectural enthusiasm bringing poetic atmosphere in the neighborhood, heritage in "Showa" era, and regeneration in small scale without gentrification. High density transportation network is connecting each neighborhood with unique character to accommodate people. These lovely taste and spacial experience can be offered even if there is a large scale new redevelopment emerges. I guess these factors have their economic and social roots. A multi-capability of Japan’s property developers who build almost everything, small land ownership structure after dissolution of “zaibatsu”, various neighborhood without “gentlification”, and a number of architectural talents proposing exiting idea. These historical background should be carefully taken into consideration as property development is essentially a very local activities which context tells.If we stand at the basics of real estate investment, there are a number of unfavorable factors in Japan's macro economy and social structure. Only attractive thing may be a cheapest bank loan and stability of cash flow in some asset classes in some selected cities. However, we have creativity. In today's world, people live, work, play, interact, and express himself/herself in dynamic setting in the cities, not been stapled in a pre-determined zoning which was the theory of a modern urban planning. Japan's experience should be some contribution to make the world urban development more exciting and fascinating for people. That would eventually provide a longer term value for the real estate investors as well.

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