Dentsu Headquarters (Caretta Shiodome)

A Shiodome tower designed by Jean Nouvel, characterized by its curved façade.

Use

Office tower

Area

Minato City

Completed

2002

Floors

48 above ground

Height

213 m

Architect

Jean Nouvel

A landmark of the Shiodome district

Higashi-Shimbashi, Minato City, Tokyo. This area, spreading out on the south side of JR Shimbashi Station, is known as a district where large-scale urban redevelopment advanced through the early 2000s. Completed in 2002 on one corner of it, the Dentsu Headquarters (Caretta Shiodome) — with 48 floors above ground and a height of 213 m — has become one of the supertall buildings that symbolize the Shiodome area.

The design was the work of the architect Jean Nouvel. Its exterior, making extensive use of a glass curtain wall, is said to change expression with the angle of light and the weather, giving off a quiet presence within the city. It feels as though the architecture functions not merely as a container for offices but as an element that composes the townscape itself. Looking up at its crown from the ground, the form rising in balanced proportion toward the sky blends naturally into the urban scenery created by the Shiodome redevelopment.

Within the context of redevelopment

The Shiodome district is known as a place where land that once functioned as a freight yard remained unused for many years. On that vast former site, multiple high-rise buildings were intensively constructed from around the 2000s. The Dentsu Headquarters is one of the buildings born within that flow of development, and its 48 floors were a striking scale even in the Tokyo of the time.

That a building of this height and design quality — while centered on its function as an office building — appeared in the city center is said to have played a certain role in shaping the character of the whole Shiodome area. As an example of the influence a single building can have on the image of a town, it is one of the more interesting cases.

Viewed from the street, you can see that, together with the other high-rises lined up nearby, it forms a single urban skyline. When you walk from Shimbashi toward Shiodome, the fact that this area changed so greatly in such a short time is felt anew through the presence of the building.

Summary

The Dentsu Headquarters (Caretta Shiodome) is a building you cannot leave out when discussing the Shiodome redevelopment — a convergence of its 2002 completion, its height of 213 m, and its design by Jean Nouvel. In its location in Higashi-Shimbashi, Minato City, the building is a kind of marker recording the city’s change, and it rewards the city-walker’s eye. For anyone interested in high-rise architecture, simply taking a long look at its exterior is reason enough to make the trip.