kitazawa town hall

Kitazawa Town Hall - Sakakura Associates, 1990. A complex and contradictionary architecture? Tokyos Setagaya-ward is subdivided into 4 administrative areas, each sub area has its own office. Located in Shimokitazawa this buildings provides a series of programs; public register, exhibition, concert hall, office, bus station, roof garden, parking and so on.



After exiting the station a series of signs in the ground lead the way to the town hall.

Entrance on a side street.

View from the larger street. Note the bus stop inside the building. There are two persons responsible for stopping traffic and guiding the bus into the correct slot.


From the other side of Odakyu-line. The Town Hall is the tallest building.

Roof top garden located on top of the lower volume (see the street picture above) provided for the public. A nice gesture but I feels slightly off.

The atrium above the sunken plaza. A metal clad column, balconies, a sunken plaza.


From below. 

Detail of bridge and in the background escalators for accessing the sunken plaza. There are also stairs.

Complex floor, covered in a drawing of an structural grid, stone covered column.

Stair, space, wall. 

On the bottom of the sunken plaza is an office for public administration, here you interact with the local government in simple administrative matters.

This kind of postmodernism is almost totally ignored today, only a few of the designs from this era get any attention today. This is not to say that this building is good, but with all its intentions and spaces it provides something to think about for a while. It says something about architecture and an era of very different ideals than the super white of the 2000s.