Shibuya Hikarie

A 34-story, 182.5-meter supertall completed in 2012 on the site of the former Tokyu Cultural Center. Standing at Shibuya Station's east exit, it fired the opening shot in the district's large-scale redevelopment and remains the definitive landmark of the east side.

Use

Office tower

Area

Shibuya City

Completed

2012

Floors

34 above ground, 4 below

Height

182.5 m

Total floor area

approx. 144,545 m²

Developer

Tokyu Corporation (formerly Tokyu Railways)

Architect

Nikken Sekkei / Tokyu Design Consultant

A Glass Tower at Shibuya’s East Exit

Step out of Shibuya Station’s east exit and a tall glass tower immediately commands your view. Shibuya Hikarie was completed in March 2012 and opened for business that April. The building rises 34 floors above ground and four below, to a height of approximately 182.5 meters, with a total floor area of around 144,500 square meters. The design is a joint work by Nikken Sekkei and Tokyu Design Consultant; the developer was Tokyu Railways, now Tokyu Corporation.

The glass-curtain-wall facade reflects the sky by day and glows from within after dark. Commercial floors anchor the base, theater and cultural facilities occupy floors 8 through 16, and offices take up floors 17 through 34 — a clean vertical sorting of uses. A covered walkway connects directly to Shibuya Station, making the building accessible in any weather without an umbrella. In both form and function, Hikarie stands as one of the more complete realizations of the urban mixed-use type.

From the Old Cultural Center to the Start of a Redevelopment Chain

The site was previously home to Tokyu Cultural Center, which opened in 1956. That complex housed cinemas, a planetarium, and an ice-skating rink under one roof and served as the defining landmark of Shibuya’s east side for nearly half a century. It closed in 2003 and was demolished, giving way to a redevelopment plan called the Shibuya New Cultural District Project, spearheaded by the Tokyu Group.

Hikarie’s 2012 opening marked the start of a sustained transformation of the area around Shibuya Station. Shibuya Stream (2018) and Shibuya Scramble Square (2019) followed in succession, collectively reshaping the district from east to west and from street level to underground. Hikarie was the first move in that sequence — the building that made the ambition of Shibuya’s reinvention concrete. To understand how the district changed, this is where the story begins.

Summary

Shibuya Hikarie was completed in 2012, rising 34 floors to approximately 182.5 meters. Built on the footprint of Tokyu Cultural Center, it opened as Shibuya’s east-side landmark and the origin point of one of Tokyo’s most ambitious station-district redevelopments. Walk out of the east exit, look up, and you are standing at the beginning of that transformation.

Related: Shibuya Scramble Square / Shibuya Stream

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