Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower
One interesting aspect of Tokyo is the cities mix of different architectural styles and neighborhoods. Unlike many other cities in the world, Tokyo has managed to grow the city in a way that many areas stand out quite visibly in character and style. When watching movies and TV dramas set in Tokyo I can often tell where it was shot by looking at the way the streets are laid out, the age and quality of the buildings and the character of people populating the streets. A few areas stand out so much that any shot from any street corner in the area is enough to give the location away. One of my weirder hobbies is to look at old Japanese movies and try to figure out where they were shot!
One of these peculiar areas is next to Shinjuku station, to the west. Every area around Shinjuku station has it’s own feel and character and I have always thought that the area between the station and the huge business and government district called Nishi Shinjuku looks and feels just like Akihabara. So I call it Mini-Akihabara (even though my Japanese friends have no idea what I’m talking about). The difference is that in Mini-Akihabara in Shinjuku, you are surrounded in every direction by huge sky scrapers, leaving the old, run down almost dingy area in the middle and isolated island of post-war small businesses and shops. Here’s a street view down Mini-Akihabara, with the towering Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower at the end. It looks very much like all the other steel band buildings that have sprung up around the world since then. This 50 story building was built between May and October 2008 and at the time I was living in the area so I saw it go up, growing a little taller every day. It even won a gold medal in the Emporis Skyscraper Award of 2008. At the same time in Beijing the famous Bird’s Nest Stadium was completed, which in turn was inspired by an even earlier building by famous icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. The Cocoon Tower is the home of three vocational schools and is the second tallest educational building in the world (there’s a fashion school, an IT school and medical school) and currently has 10 000 students studying there every weekday. I’d really like to go inside some day! Does anyone know anyone who studies there?
Someday I’ll try to get better photos than this. It is really difficult to shoot such a tall building from so close beneath it! The whole area of Nishi Shinjuku is extremely interesting from an architectural and engineering viewpoint, the combination of extremely soft ground with extremely tall buildings has created one of the most complex built up areas in the world. I’ll tell you more about it some other time!
very nice shot of this area of shinjuku and very informative! I had always wondered what this building was for- I had no idea it was for educational purposes! Amazing so many students are enrolled, and how amazing if this is awesome structure is the school you attend!!
Thanks! Isn’t it cool?
One time when I stayed in Shinjuku I looked right at that tower. Thanks for the info, I just assumed it was a bank or something.
Most people do, I don’t know how on earth the school managed to fund this construction, but it looks great!
wow! somehow it stands out of place on it’s own, in a good way though!
Yes! There’s a few other angles where it looks more natural, but I prefer this one! (^-^)
I can only imagine myself on the phone trying to guide someone, i’d just say “Trust me! you’ll know when you get there!” lol
50 story! Wow! Where exactly is this Cocoon located? What’s the brown building behind it? I used to work on the 30th floor in KDD building (another ancient tale!) though not for KDD but in a small office for a Danish company. I thought I was high up then! I felt sea sick whenever there were even mild earthquakes. (All those skyscrapers are designed to sway with the quakes in order to withstand them.) The surrounding small shops must have changed. Do you know if the vegetarian restaurant called Manna is still there? It was in the basement on the lane from KDD to the west exit of the station. I used to each lunch there often sometimes with my Danish boss.
I didn’t know you were in the KDDI building! The large Empire State Building look-a-like? Wow. The Cocoon Tower is near the Shinjuku L Tower and the Hilton, I think those buildings are contemporary with the KDDI building. Right now there’s a dozen or so restaurants near the foot of the KDDI building but the only ones I know are the Freshness burger, a Vietnamese and a Chinese restaurant. I’ll keep an eye out for Manna the next time I pass!
You know, I’d never even seen this building before. At first, I thought it was a similarly designed building in London.
Now the two buildings that have left the biggest impressions on me have been Act Tower in Hamamatsu – the beautiful beige-pink skyscraper and the tallest building by orders of magnitude within a 100 mile radius (conjecture); my first year in Japan was spent working on the 13th floor, and would often pop up to the 30th for lunch, or higher for the observation lounge. The other is near where I live now, and a building I’d often pass going to and from work. It’s the Ōta-ku Sangyō Plaza Pio. It looks like a Star Destroyer from the original Star Wars. The picture below doesn’t really do it justice, but I think it gets the point across…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mi-ki/2513971382/
I know the London building you mean, the Gherkin right? (^-^) Yes, the Hamamatsu building really stands out. It’s interesting that it’s not even located in the prefectural capital. Weird. That is a great photo by the way! Really nice capture! Sadly I am almost never down there these days…!
That’s the one, the Swiss Re Building I think it’s actually called (though Gherkin fits better…). Totally agree about Act having an odd choice of location. With Hamamatsu being the music centre of Japan though, I can sort of see why they’d want a giant harmonica in the middle, though what would have been cooler would have been if they’d made a giant motorbike, the other thing the city is famous for. Or possibly a giant eel reaching its neck into the sky. Actually that’s pretty nasty…
Something of a tangent here, but given all the anti-nuclear protests going on worldwide, I’m surprised there aren’t similar protests demanding that skyscrapers be decommissioned and banned from construction. They’re clearly deathtraps, as it’s been demonstrated well that it only takes a handful of guys armed with box cutters to topple them…
Yes, the unofficial name is far better! Obviously, my favorite sort of building, the only one to stand the test of time is the classic 古民家 of the Japanese countryside. (^-^)
What a great photo! as usual. I can really feel the enormity of the building with you putting the couple as the front figure. Can’t wait to see you enter the building. The interior must be as stunning as the exterior. But then again, you don’t really need to go inside of it to create great photos. You already got the skill to turn daily scene into awesome pictures. This one is an example.
Thank you for all the kind words Penman! I took this photo with a 50mm lens, from that distance it was impossible to go with a longer lens, but enough to create the forced perspective where the foreground (the couple), the middle and the background (the tower) is almost squashed together! I guess I could just go inside and ride the elevators to the top but it might be a little bit rude…! (^-^;)
Oh and btw, thanks for following me.
You’re welcome Penman! (^-^)
yes, I like your photo too! I always see it from Shinjuku-gyoen(a favourite place) and from there it looks gigantic. With the lens and lighting you’ve made it look almost small.
In Nagoya(not Tokyo, I know) they have the spiral art school and if you lunch on the patio nearby the helicopters pass by and you can sit wayyy up in the midst of architectural marvel.
please continue(happy 3 years, omedettou)
Thank Vishy, for remembering me! (^-^) Yes, I know that Nagoya building but I have never been up it. Next time I visit Nagoya perhaps! Actually that school had a really good commercial on TV a few years ago, did you see it? All those art students flopping down from the sky?
ahhh..shinjuku, i stayed there for a week when i visited tokyo, i remember the male escorts and the yummy ramen stall that opens till the dead of night, good time
Shinjuku really is a special place! I have spent so much time there so for me it has become the image of Tokyo. The male hosts, sort of glorified drinking buddies are still there and still as strong as ever! (^-^;)
what a great shot! would have loved to see that building when I visited tokyo. only got to explore shinjuku sanchome and golden gai areas. oh and happy three years of blogging! thanks for all the japan posts and photos. for someone madly in love with japan, your blog is a gem
Thanks! I appreciate your support and nice smile! (^-^) The Golden Gai is one of the hidden gems of Shinjuku so even if you only saw that you were lucky! Besides, you’ll come back someday right?