Takanawa Gateway Station / Takanawa Gateway City

Opened in March 2020 as a new stop on the Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku lines, Takanawa Gateway Station features a dramatic origami-inspired roof designed by Kengo Kuma. It anchors the Takanawa Gateway City redevelopment — a 9.5-hectare project on a former JR depot site transforming the gap between Shinagawa and Tamachi.

A New Station Between Shinagawa and Tamachi

On 14 March 2020, Takanawa Gateway Station opened as a new stop on the Yamanote Line and Keihin-Tohoku Line, positioned between Shinagawa and Tamachi stations. It was the first new Yamanote Line station in approximately 95 years since the line’s full-loop opening in 1925. The station sits in Konan 2-chome, Minato City, and handles two island platforms across four tracks.

The station building was designed by Kengo Kuma, with a total floor area of 6,340.84 square metres. Its defining feature is a large white roof reaching approximately 30 metres in height, inspired by the geometry of origami. The roof surface uses ETFE film — a translucent membrane that admits light while blocking heat — filling the interior with a diffuse glow that softens the scale of the space. Combined with latticework screens evoking shoji paper screens and the use of timber elements, the design aims at a distinctly Japanese spatial character. The station drew attention internationally for the contrast it presented to the steel-and-glass vocabulary of most contemporary transit architecture.

A Former Rail Depot Becomes a New District

The station’s opening was the first move in a larger urban transformation. The land between Shinagawa and Tamachi had long been occupied by JR East vehicle maintenance facilities. After the Shinkansen stop at Shinagawa opened in 2003, the depot shrank and relocated, freeing approximately 9.5 hectares for redevelopment. Takanawa Gateway City — led by JR East at a total project cost of approximately 600 billion yen — is that transformation.

THE LINKPILLAR 1, a twin-tower office complex of 29 to 30 storeys and approximately 158 to 161 metres in height, completed in March 2025. THE LINKPILLAR 2, at 31 storeys and approximately 167 metres, reached full opening in spring 2026. The site is being released in phases, so the district’s character is still in formation.

During excavation work in 2019 and 2020, workers uncovered the remains of the Takanawa Embankment — a stone seawall built in 1872 to carry Japan’s first railway along reclaimed tidal flats. The debate over how to preserve this foundational piece of railway heritage within a live construction site became a widely watched episode in the national conversation about historical preservation and urban development.

Summary

Takanawa Gateway Station, opened in 2020 as the Yamanote Line’s newest stop, carries Kengo Kuma’s origami-roof design across a floor area of 6,340.84 square metres and a roof height of approximately 30 metres. Behind it, the 9.5-hectare Takanawa Gateway City redevelopment — anchored by THE LINKPILLAR 1 and 2 — is gradually filling the long-blank gap between Shinagawa and Tamachi with offices, retail, and cultural space. Walking the site today means moving through a city district that is still actively being assembled — a rare chance to catch Tokyo mid-transformation.

Related: msb Tamachi / Shinagawa Intercity / Tokyo Portcity Takeshiba

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