Sunshine City World Import Mart Building

Completed in 1978 as part of Sunshine City in Higashi-Ikebukuro, Toshima. With a gross floor area of 93,356 square metres, it serves as the complex's entertainment and exhibition core — housing a rooftop aquarium, a planetarium, an indoor theme park, and trade-fair halls. The precinct stands on the site of the former Sugamo Prison, one of postwar Tokyo's most charged pieces of land.

Use

Office tower

Area

Toshima City

Completed

1978

Total floor area

approx. 93,356 m²

Developer

New Urban Development Centre (now Sunshine City Corporation)

Architect

Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei

The Entertainment and Exhibition Core of Sunshine City

To the east of Ikebukuro Station, a long covered shopping street leads toward a cluster of towers that define this side of the neighbourhood. Sunshine City World Import Mart Building is one of five major structures that make up the Sunshine City complex, which opened in October 1978: Sunshine 60 (the office tower), the Sunshine City Prince Hotel, the Cultural Centre Building, the Alpa shopping mall, and this building, which concentrates entertainment and exhibition functions across a gross floor area of 93,356 square metres. The complex was developed by New Urban Development Centre (now Sunshine City Corporation), designed by Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei, and built by Taisei Corporation.

The World Import Mart Building holds several distinct attractions. On the rooftop, Sunshine Aquarium and the planetarium Manten offer open-air experiences suspended above the Ikebukuro skyline. On the second floor, the indoor theme park Namja Town fills a sprawling space with food courts, games, and seasonal events. Exhibition halls on the middle floors have hosted trade fairs and large-scale events since the complex first opened. The combination — aquarium, planetarium, theme park, and exhibition — stacked in a single building reflects the scale of ambition that shaped 1970s mixed-use development in Japan: not a cluster of offices, but a vertical city in miniature.

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From Sugamo Prison to a Postwar Entertainment District

The site carries a significant history. Before development began, the land was occupied by the Tokyo Detention House, which during the Allied occupation became known as Sugamo Prison. It was here that seven Class-A war criminals, including former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, were executed in December 1948. When the detention house relocated to Katsushika Ward in 1971, the large central site became available for redevelopment.

New Urban Development Centre was established in 1966 with a plan for a comprehensive subcenter development in east Ikebukuro. Construction began in 1973, and the complex opened in 1978 — having pushed through the cost pressures of the 1973 oil shock. The area adjacent to the former execution site was preserved as Higashi-Ikebukuro Chuo Park by Toshima Ward, where a stone memorial reading “wishing for eternal peace” still stands. The layering of grief and gaiety — a war-crimes prison becoming a vast aquarium-and-theme-park complex — is a particularly direct example of how postwar Tokyo repurposed its most charged spaces. Nearly half a century on, the complex continues to update: Sunshine Aquarium has undergone significant renovation, and the precinct remains one of Ikebukuro’s steadiest draws.

Summary

Sunshine City World Import Mart Building was completed in 1978 in Higashi-Ikebukuro, Toshima City, as the entertainment and exhibition core of the Sunshine City complex. With a gross floor area of 93,356 square metres, it was developed by New Urban Development Centre (now Sunshine City Corporation), designed by Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei, and built by Taisei Corporation — all on a site whose previous occupant, Sugamo Prison, left a history the surrounding park still marks. Walking east from Ikebukuro Station and into the complex, the towers may look like any large commercial development; knowing what lay here before gives the visit a different weight.

Related: Sunshine 60

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