Sphere Tower Tennoz

A 28-story office tower completed in 1993, standing 117 metres on the Tennoz Isle waterfront in Shinagawa. Developed by Mitsubishi Corporation, the building's spherical design elements made it one of the signature landmarks of Tokyo's waterfront redevelopment era.

Use

Office tower

Area

Shinagawa City

Completed

1993

Floors

28 above ground, 2 below

Height

117 m

Developer

Mitsubishi Corporation

Architect

RIA (R.I.A Co., Ltd.)

A Sphere-Shaped Landmark on the Waterfront

Walking the canal-side promenades of Tennoz Isle in Shinagawa, a tall office building with distinctive spherical design elements stands out above the waterway. Sphere Tower Tennoz was completed in April 1993 as a 28-story building rising 117.50 metres in Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa City. Developed by Mitsubishi Corporation and designed by R.I.A, the building takes its name from the globe-like accents worked into each floor of the façade — a design statement that made it one of the more visually distinctive towers to emerge from Tokyo’s late-bubble waterfront development push.

Construction was carried out by a joint venture including Kajima Corporation, Taisei Corporation, and Kumagai Gumi, among others. Tennoz Isle itself was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s as part of a broader effort to redevelop former industrial land along Tokyo’s inner harbour, turning what had been warehouse and factory sites into a mixed zone of offices, residences, and cultural facilities.

The Tower That Shaped a District’s Identity

Sphere Tower was completed in the immediate aftermath of Japan’s bubble economy collapse, a difficult moment for large commercial real estate projects. Yet the building went on to serve as one of the area’s defining office addresses and a reference point in Tennoz Isle’s evolving identity.

That identity shifted in interesting ways over the following decades. While office use remained central, Tennoz accumulated a cluster of art galleries, a live music venue, and creative businesses that gave the district a character quite different from conventional business districts. Sphere Tower has stood through all of it, a fixed point in a neighbourhood still redefining itself.

The building is within walking distance of Tennoz Isle Station on the Tokyo Monorail and Rinkai Line, making it accessible from Haneda Airport and from the broader Shinagawa area. The canal-side path beneath the tower offers perhaps the best angle on the building’s unusual façade, the spheres catching light differently at each visit.

Summary

Sphere Tower Tennoz was completed in 1993 as a 28-story, 117-metre office tower on the Tennoz Isle waterfront. Mitsubishi Corporation developed it and RIA gave it a shape distinctive enough to anchor the district’s visual memory. Visiting it alongside Shinagawa Intercity and Tokyo Port City Takeshiba traces the long arc of waterfront transformation along Tokyo’s inner harbour — industrial past giving way, piece by piece, to the mixed urban fabric of today.