Kudan Kaikan Terrace

Opened October 2022 in Kudanshita, Chiyoda City. A 17-story, 74.97-meter office complex that retained the registered tangible cultural property façade of the original Kudan Kaikan (built 1934) while adding a contemporary glass tower behind it.

Use

Office tower

Area

Chiyoda City

Completed

2022

Floors

17 above ground, 3 below

Height

74.97 m

Developer

GK Nouve Grante (Tokyu Land Corporation & Kajima Corporation JV)

Architect

Kajima / Azusa Sekkei Joint Venture

Where History and Height Meet at Kudanshita

One minute on foot from Kudanshita Station (Hanzomon, Shinjuku, and Tozai lines), Kudan Kaikan Terrace rises in a way that stops passers-by in their tracks. The stone façade of the original Kudan Kaikan — built in 1934 as a military officers’ hall in a style blending Western Classicism with Japanese roof forms — stands intact at street level. Behind it, a 17-story, 74.97-meter glass tower emerges, creating an architectural double-exposure unique in Tokyo’s cityscape. The project was completed in October 2022, developed by GK Nouve Grante, a joint venture of Tokyu Land Corporation and Kajima Corporation, and designed by the Kajima / Azusa Sekkei Joint Venture.

The original Kudan Kaikan served as a government guesthouse and later as a private wedding and banquet venue. After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake caused a partial ceiling collapse that resulted in fatalities, the aging building was closed. Its striking prewar façade had been registered as a national tangible cultural property, and so the designers devised façade retention: the historic stone front is structurally detached from the new tower rising behind it. The result is a building that reads as two eras coexisting in a single frame.

A Template for Urban Memory

Façade retention is common in European conservation practice but remains relatively rare in Japan. Kudan Kaikan Terrace demonstrates how a wartime-era shell can be maintained without simply becoming scenery: the lower floors incorporate multipurpose hall space, keeping the building active rather than museified. The site adjoins Yasukuni Shrine and sits minutes from Chidorigafuchi, a park along the former outer moat of Edo Castle — one of Tokyo’s most celebrated cherry-blossom destinations in spring.

Summary

Completed in 2022, Kudan Kaikan Terrace stands 17 floors and 74.97 meters tall in Chiyoda City. By retaining the 1934 registered cultural-property façade while constructing a contemporary tower behind it, the project offers a rare lesson in how Tokyo can hold its past and its future in the same frame. Walking from Kudanshita Station, look for the seam where carved stone meets glass — it is one of the city’s most visible arguments for adaptive heritage.