On a recent evening, I found myself walking around the posh, low-rise district of Daikanyama. Sunset washed over the treetops, and the glow from shop windows spilled onto the cool blue sidewalks below. A canopy of camphor and zelkova trees swayed over Kyu-Yamate Dori, the 20 meter wide main street through the neighborhood. Elegant 30-something-year-olds promenaded slowly—a low hum compared to the frenetic buzz of Shibuya Crossing, some 20 minutes walk away.
The atmosphere of Daikanyama is unique. Tokyo is known for the heterogeneous character of its neighborhoods, but most parts of town can still be seen as instances of a type. Shinjuku and Ikebukuro, for example, are both regional rail and office hubs. Shimokitazawa and Koenji are localized retail zones that service middle class suburbs. But Daikanyama sits outside such categorizations; there isn’t a clear comparison for this district anywhere else in the city.
Much of Daikanyama’s character today can be attributed to Hillside Terrace, a mixed-use complex designed sequentially over 40 years by Fumihiko Maki. Arrayed along the prow of a hill, the intricate arrangement of buildings, alleys, and spaces frame relics of the past: groves of old trees, a Taisho era mansion, and a 7th century kofun (burial mound). Taken together, the development is Maki’s magnum opus, and the most complete realization of the theory of “group form” that he developed with Masato Otaka in their joint contribution to the publication Metabolism 1960.
Maki’s complex straddles Kyu-Yamate Dori, and occupies hundreds of meters of street frontage, so it’s only natural that it plays an important role in defining the character of Daikanyama. But the significance of Hillside Terrace for the neighborhood lies not only in its presence, but in its influence.
In recent years, the pattern established by Maki has been reapplied elsewhere in Daikanyama by various architects. Notable examples include Akihisa Hirata’s “Sarugaku,” Klein Dytham’s “T-Site”, and EcoLab’s “Daikanyama Cube.” Each of these projects attest to the adaptability of this spatial framework, in which a single site is populated by a grouping of formally related but structurally distinct buildings arranged around a shared space. The identity Maki constructed at Hillside Terrace can be said to constitute the “image” of all of Daikanyama, in Kevin Lynch’s sense of the word.
In this local genealogy of urban design, the formal and organizational vocabulary of the neighborhood closely tracks to that of Hillside Terrace, but less so its programmatic qualities. The most important difference between Hillside Terrace and its later-day reinterpretations is the degree to which they are defined by shopping. All of the above examples—Sarugaku, T-Site, and Daikanyama Cube—are dominated by commercial space.
Compared with these, Hillside Terrace functions almost like a small town. There is an art gallery, an exhibition hall, a performance venue, a tea house, a shrine, a club, office space, and, perhaps most importantly, large quantities of housing. There are many shops in the complex as well, but Maki subtly separates them from public spaces by use of steps, ramps, and indirect entries. For good or for ill, one never gets the sense that any of the businesses have ownership over the plazas to which they are adjacent. The presence of public art in the complex adds to the sense of a shared, civic identity.
As its fame as a shopping destination grows, Daikanyama is increasingly torn between culture and commercialization. But the story of this neighborhood is still unfolding. The wildly popular T-Site, Tsutaya’s flagship bookstore, was only intended to be a temporary structure, and its roughly 4,000 m2 parking lot remains the largest undeveloped parcel in the area. Other redevelopments are underway nearby. Hillside Terrace, though ostensibly complete, cannot help but be implicated in the neighborhood’s ongoing transformation.
Guided by Maki’s vision, Daikanyama has developed from a sleepy, semi-rural enclave into a neighborhood with a mature spatial and architectural character, but we cannot preclude the possibility of further change. To treat the area as a relic would be to ignore the philosophy of metabolic growth that undergirds its design. The challenge ahead for Daikanyama will be to reconcile its identity with the vicissitudes of real estate speculation, changing tastes, and time.
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-Don O’Keefe
Researcher, architectural designer, writer
A project assistant professor at Keio University, a research associate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and an independent designer. He is a researcher at the Fumihiko Maki Archive at Keio SFC and the coordinator of design research for Japan Story, a research platform of the Harvard GSD. His writing has appeared in The Architectural Review, the Japan Times, and other venues.
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