Construction for the new Ginza Sony Park Completed
From the “Garden of Ginza” to the “Park of Ginza”
Construction for new Ginza Sony Park—the final phase of the Ginza Sony Park Project, which involves the reconstruction of the Sony Building (5-3-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo) in the Ginza area of Tokyo—was completed on August 15, 2024. Ginza Sony Park, with its low height compared to the buildings around it, is meant to bring a sense of openness to the Sukiyabashi Crossing.
The “Garden of Ginza” was a public space of about 33 square meters that was opened in 1966 at the corner of the Sony Building, based on the concept of providing a public space. The new Ginza Sony Park continues and expands upon this concept by serving as the “Park of Ginza,” bringing rhythm to the city and its people with the bits of leisure and various activities it o ers in the urban environment. The grand opening of the new Ginza Sony Park is scheduled for January 2025
The new Ginza Sony Park is a reconstruction of the Sony Building, and has a steel-frame concrete structure, with five above-ground floors and four basement floors. Its height has purposely been set to about half the height of the other buildings in Ginza, to create a sense of openness and a new kind of landscape in this high-concentration urban area. Ginza Sony Park also carries on what the Sony Building has been cherished for : Open to public spirit based Building as its architecture philosophy, and those unique architectural features, its “Junction” architecture, and its vertical-promenade style.
The corner of the Sony Building facing the Sukiyabashi Crossing in Ginza used to be home to the Sony Square, a public space of 33 square meters where Sony hosted seasonal events, distributing vivid gerbera daisies in the spring, and setting an aquarium to bring a sense of coolness to the town in the summer. The public space was based on the concept of “developing” a city in coordination of nature and landscape, and was meant to serve as an external space where people could interact with the city, in an urban environment where there is typically little openness. Designed to be enjoyable to those who visited the city, the space was the epitome of the concept of providing a public space. Akio Morita, one of the founders of Sony, called this space the “Garden of Ginza.” Ginza Sony Park carries on the ideas from the 50-year “Garden of Ginza,” and expands upon it, as the “Park of Ginza.” Ginza Sony Park creates a sense of openness not only within the city, but throughout the building itself, with spaces where visitors can relax, hands-on programs, and dining establishments. The goal is for the Ginza Sony Park to serve as a hub for various activities, in order to bring rhythm to the city and its people.
From its prestigious location, the Ginza Sony Park serves various urban functions, with three sides of Ginza Sony Park facing the street, and the basement floors connected directly to the subway concourse and one of the area’ s largest underground parking lots. It also carries on the “Junction” architecture that has been used since the Sony Building to link these urban transportation functions to the building in an organic manner. The open ceiling space serves as a natural receptacle for the flow of people coming in from the Sukiyabashi Crossing, and the lack of doors and walls separating the inside from the outside on the basement floors is designed to make the flow of people underground as seamless as possible, all so that visitors can come and go through the space as naturally as possible. Some of the building frame for the Sony Building has also been left intact where the basement floor connects to these urban functions, allowing visitors a glimpse into the history of the building as it has evolved and accumulated over time.
Staggered floors, or a “flower petal structure,” was used in the Sony Building to make effective use of the relatively small piece of land on which the building stood. This structure connected the entire building in a series of connected each floors, turning it into a vertical promenade. This promenade, which existed only on the above-ground floors in the Sony Building, has been realized in the new Ginza Sony Park from the third basement floor to the fifth above-ground floor (roof), making use of the external environment to connect the entire building in a single vertical promenade.
The completed building has an exposed-concrete design—a rarity in the city of Ginza. The use of ordinary wooden formwork in the concrete pouring process resulted in the wood pattern and color being reflected in the final product, creating an unpretentious and almost primitive texture. This, combined with the low but massive height of the building, is meant to embody Ginza Sony Park’s status as a “platform” within the city. The stainless steel grid-like frame covering the concrete surface will serve not only as a functional façade for various activities utilizing the wall, role as a common ditch to pass pipes, etc. at the time of facility expansion, but also as a loose boundary between Ginza Sony Park and the city, with the light coming into the large above-ground open ceiling through the gaps in the frame shifting and changing like sunlight filtering through the leaves of trees
Ginza Sony Park has carried on and expanded upon the founder’s vision of a facility that is open to the city, as a space that brings rhythm to the city and its people, with its bits of leisure and various activities. Just as the Sony Building has disseminated information to the world from its location in the Sukiyabashi Crossing in Ginza, we too will set out to take on new challenges from Ginza Sony Park.
We are also planning activities such as an architectural tour leading up to the planned grand opening of the new Ginza Sony Park in January 2025. Details will be released as they become available
via Sony
