Why you should experience Hillside Terrace in Tokyo, Japan.
Hillside Terrace is a refined architectural enclave where Sarugakucho's residential scale, sloping terrain, pedestrian passages and restrained modernism establish one of Daikanyama's most consequential pieces of urban design.
Set along Kyu-Yamate-dori near Hachiman-dori and just steps from Kyu Asakura House, the complex extends across the street edge through low-rise volumes whose setbacks, courtyards and openings interrupt the conventional boundary between building and city. Fumihiko Maki used transparency, changes in depth and protected exterior areas to establish a sequence of public and semi-public spaces across the property. Building heights and circulation respond closely to subtle changes in the terrain, allowing separate structures to read as parts of a continuous architectural composition. The result is a development whose physical restraint helped establish Daikanyama's enduring relationship between architecture, commerce and pedestrian-scaled urban life.
What you should know about Hillside Terrace.
Hillside Terrace is best known for an unusually long development process that allowed Fumihiko Maki and the Asakura family to shape the property incrementally across a quarter century of change in Tokyo. The family had owned the elongated hillside site before large-scale redevelopment reached Daikanyama, and Asakura Real Estate chose gradual construction intended to preserve the quality of the area over time. Maki's office responded with a master plan divided into successive stages, beginning work on the project during the late 1960s. The original site carried a 10-meter height restriction and 150-percent floor-area ratio under its residential zoning, conditions that pushed the architecture toward compact low-rise forms. Shops and restaurants at street level required special permission, introducing commercial activity without abandoning the residential scale governing the property. Phases I through VI reached completion between 1969 and 1992, with reinforced-concrete buildings incorporating residences, shops, offices, galleries and halls as later stages answered changing demands around Daikanyama. Hillside West followed in 1998 as the seventh phase, distributing offices, shops and housing among three buildings connected by a narrow passage and semi-public circulation. The extended construction sequence turned one family property into a rare architectural project in which successive buildings responded to lessons accumulated across decades of Tokyo's expansion.
Cultural programming developed alongside the architecture and gave the complex an institutional reach far beyond its tenants. Maki initiated SD Review in 1982 as an exhibition of architectural drawings and models, and the program became an important platform for emerging architects. Hillside Gallery added exhibitions that supported artists, extending the property's role into contemporary visual culture. Hillside Plaza Hall arrived in 1987 and brought a sustained concert program associated with violinist Koichiro Harada. Hillside Forum followed in 1992 as another dedicated venue for cultural activity, strengthening the connection between architecture and public programming across the complex. A 1993 exhibition at Harvard University examined Hillside Terrace's development from 1967 to 1992, placing the project inside an international architectural discussion during the same year Maki received the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Hillside Terrace itself received the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts, the Japan Art Prize and the Prince of Wales Prize in Urban Design, followed by recognition in DOCOMOMO Japan's selection of 100 works. Cultural activity at Daikanyama Hillside Terrace received the Mecenat Grand Award for fiscal 1998, confirming that the programming developed across its galleries, halls and public spaces had become a significant achievement alongside Maki's architecture.
How to fold Hillside Terrace into your trip.
Hillside Terrace works as the anchor for a daytime progression through a twenty-first-century publishing complex, a Meiji statesman's former estate and the partial reconstruction of an Edo daimyo garden.
Begin at Daikanyama T-SITE, opened in December 2011 after Culture Convenience Club selected Klein Dytham architecture through a competition involving more than 70 architectural firms. Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham worked with RIA on three principal pavilions organized around a 55-meter Magazine Street, with perforated exterior screens constructed from repeated forms of the Tsutaya “T.” The 5,907-square-meter project retained existing trees and received World's Best Shopping Centre recognition at the 2013 World Architecture Festival, carrying Daikanyama's tradition of low-rise architectural experimentation into a new generation. Continue to Saigoyama Park, occupying the northeastern portion of the former estate of Meiji politician and military leader Saigo Tsugumichi. The broader property had belonged during the Edo period to the Nakagawa family of Oka Domain before Tsugumichi acquired approximately 20,000 tsubo during the early Meiji period. Emperor Meiji visited the estate in 1889, and its Western residence, designed with French architect Jules Lescasse and carpenter Kotaro Suzuki, incorporated unusual earthquake-resistant construction before relocation to Meiji Mura in 1963. Conclude at Sugekari Park, where archaeological investigation in 1997 preceded partial reconstruction of the garden that once occupied the same estate. The ground had contained an Edo-period circuit garden supplied with water from the Mita Aqueduct during the Nakagawa family's tenure, and Tsugumichi later rebuilt its ponds, waterfall and great lawn. Meguro City opened the 20,049-square-meter park in 2001 with a reconstructed Japanese garden and cultural facilities preserving the site's earlier landscape history. The progression moves from contemporary architectural patronage through Saigo Tsugumichi's Meiji estate into the recovered structure of an Edo daimyo garden, extending Daikanyama's architectural culture backward through successive forms of private landholding and designed landscape.
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