The tower is the centerpiece of Roppongi Hills, an ambitious
development that reflects a new
Tokyo. Opened last spring, Roppongi
Hills is many things - a residential area, a commercial and
cultural district - but at its heart it is a city-within-a-city, a
self-contained pocket with all the attractions of modern urban
living without the usual obstacles. Covering 28 acres in the trendy
Roppongi district, Roppongi Hills offers the top of the line in
lodging, dining, and shopping. It has a nine-screen cinema complex,
a multilingual library, and a modern art museum that is one of the
largest showcases for contemporary culture in
Asia. It has ample
office space, high-end residential towers, and a seamless network
of pedestrian walkways, gardens, and open spaces for outdoor
entertainment and exhibitions.
It's as if someone crossed the
Guggenheim with Rockefeller Center,
threw in the Trump Tower and a host of four-star restaurants, then
placed it all at the foot of Rodeo Drive.
"How do you create a bridge between culture and commerce, to show
great sensitivity to the finer things in life, such as art and
culture, and still translate it into the commercial world?" asks
Tony Chi, one of the prominent architects who worked on the design.
"That is the ambition of Roppongi Hills, and for that, it deserves
tremendous applause."
Roppongi Hills was designed by a team of leading
international architects, but the overarching concept is the
brainchild of one man: Minoru Mori, the namesake of Mori Tower. A
billionaire developer, Mori is one of
Japan's richest men, and one
of the country's foremost visionaries. Roppongi Hills, his $4
billion project, is meant to turn a profit; however, the philosophy
behind it reaches deeper than the bottom line. Mori envisions it as
a tourist attraction (more than 20 million people have already
visited) and a cultural center, as well as a model for a prosperous
Japan.