Keio Plaza Hotel Tokyo

Completed in 1971, Keio Plaza Hotel Tokyo was the first skyscraper built in Nishi-Shinjuku and gained international attention as the world's tallest hotel at the time. Standing 47 floors and 178 meters tall, it is now recognized by DOCOMOMO JAPAN as a landmark of modern Japanese architecture.

Use

Office tower

Area

Shinjuku

Completed

1971

Floors

47 above ground, 3 below

Height

178 m

Developer

Keio Electric Railway

Architect

Nihon Sekkei

The First Tower to Rise in Nishi-Shinjuku

At 2-2-1 Nishi-Shinjuku, a short walk from the intersection in front of Tokyo Metropolitan Government, stands a 47-story hotel that has watched over the western skyline of Shinjuku since 1971. This is the Keio Plaza Hotel Tokyo.

Completed in June 1971 and designed by Nihon Sekkei with construction by Kajima Corporation, the building rises 178 meters above street level. At the time of its opening, it was the world’s tallest hotel — a distinction that drew significant international attention. A south annex (35 floors, 138 meters) was added in later years. Keio Electric Railway developed the property.

The site tells a story in itself. The Yodobashi Water Purification Plant, which had occupied much of this area, was decommissioned in 1965, leaving an expanse of vacant land in what would become one of Tokyo’s most ambitious urban development projects. Keio Plaza Hotel was the very first building to break ground on that cleared land, standing alone on the new frontier of Nishi-Shinjuku with no neighboring towers in sight.

The Catalyst for a New Urban Core

Tokyo’s planning authorities designated the former purification plant site as the “Shinjuku Subcenter” throughout the 1960s, envisioning a dense cluster of office and hotel towers to ease congestion in the traditional central business district. The Keio Plaza Hotel’s construction was the first tangible step in realizing that vision.

What followed tells the rest of the story: Shinjuku Mitsui Building and Shinjuku Sumitomo Building opened in 1974, Shinjuku Center Building in 1978, and the iconic Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building No. 1, designed by Kenzo Tange, in 1991. Today the Nishi-Shinjuku skyline is one of the densest concentrations of high-rise buildings in Japan. Keio Plaza Hotel stands as the point of origin for that transformation.

In 2022, DOCOMOMO JAPAN — the organization dedicated to the documentation and conservation of Modern Movement architecture — recognized the hotel as one of the significant works of twentieth-century Japanese architecture. That recognition underscores what was already apparent to urban historians: this building did not merely open a hotel; it opened a new chapter in Tokyo’s cityscape.

Summary

Keio Plaza Hotel Tokyo, completed in 1971, is a 47-floor, 178-meter tower that stands as the founding landmark of the Nishi-Shinjuku high-rise district. Its role as the world’s tallest hotel at opening, and as the catalyst for one of Japan’s most concentrated urban developments, gives it an architectural and historical significance that extends well beyond its function as a place to stay. Walking the Shinjuku Mitsui Building corridor and looking back toward Keio Plaza Hotel is the clearest way to appreciate just how much distance this single building set in motion.