Ginza’s Okuno Building: A Slice of Tokyo’s Early Twentieth Century 🏢
Official Website of GINZA OKUNO BUILDING ROOM 306 PROJECT
Built in the early twentieth century as the ne plus ultra in luxury apartments of its time, the Okuno Building in Tokyo’s ritzy Ginza district is now home to renowned art galleries and antique shops.
Luxury Built to Last 🏛️
In Ginza 1-chōme, not far from the Kyōbashi district, stands the Okuno Building, an early modernist structure dating to the early Shōwa era (1926–89). Tucked in between the modern office buildings and shopping complexes of the glitzy, ultramodern commercial storefronts in Ginza, this building stands out.
The building may already be familiar to art aficionados, given the renowned art galleries among its tenants. The first floor houses antique shops, while the second through the sixth floors are occupied by small art galleries, shops, and private business offices. Dozens of businesses rent space here, all steeped in the building’s historical atmosphere. Even the elevator doors on each floor are maintained in their original, manually operated style. Increasingly, foreign tourists come to experience the building itself, in addition to visiting the various galleries and shops it contains.
Originally known as the “Ginza Apartments,” the Okuno Building comprises two buildings standing side by side and coupled together. The main building, on the left as one faces the entrance, was built in 1932, and the so-called New Building on the right was completed two years later. The story goes that the building originated when Okuno Jisuke—the grandfather of the present owner, Okuno Tsuguo, who made his fortune in the manufacture of railroad parts—built a parts factory on the land where the Okuno Building presently stands. The factory was damaged in the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, and was relocated to Ōimachi thereafter. In its place, the elder Okuno decided to take advantage of the real estate potential of the area and constructed a building on the site. The building was made of reinforced concrete, so as to be capable of withstanding subsequent earthquakes.
Okuno Jisuke called on Kawamoto Ryōichi, an architect he knew, to produce the designs. Kawamoto had served as the head of the architecture department at Dōjunkai, a firm known for its namesake Dōjunkai Apartments, a group of apartment buildings made of reinforced concrete between 1924 and 1933 in the Tokyo and Yokohama areas. After starting his own business, Kawamoto designed such structures as the brick Kudan Kaikan, which stands to this day in Tokyo’s Kudanshita district. The building he designed for his friend Okuno would be one of the top luxury apartment buildings in the Ginza, owing to both its reinforced concrete construction, which was still a novelty at the time, and to its having an elevator for the use of its residents.
ABOUT ROOM 306 PROJECT 🎨
There was a sign on the wall in the dim hallway saying Suda Beauty Salon on the 3rd floor of the Okuno Building. It was a nice design, with an atmosphere from the past, but there had been no evidence of a beauty salon on that floor for at least ten years. All that could be surmised was that there was once a beauty salon on the 3rd floor, but now only the sign remained. The issue of the existence of a beauty salon aside, the sign still had much to convey with its mysterious ambiance – a link to a different era which left a lasting impression.
GINZA OKUNO BUILDING ROOM 306 PROJECT 🏢
The “Ginza Apartment[s]” building (currently the Okuno Building) was built in 1932. Soon after completion, a woman moved into the building and opened a beauty salon in Room-306. While working and living in the Okuno Building, she witnessed 1930’s Ginza, the start of World War-II, the bombing of Tokyo, the postwar reconstruction period, and Japan’s rise as an economically powerful country. She closed the beauty salon in the 1980s, and moved into room 306, which became her residence until her death at the age of 100, in early 2009.
Fortunately, after her belongings were removed from the room, but before cleaning and renovation had begun, we were able to rent the room.
ABOUT THE PROJECT 🎨
The “Ginza Okuno Building Room-306 Project” is a non-profit group, whose members keep and use Room-306 for non-profitable activities. The project members are from many different backgrounds and are engaged in various projects while loosely interacting with each other. The purpose of the 306-group is not to preserve the remains of the room as in a museum. As time progresses, paint is peeling from one wall, wallpaper is coming off of another wall, and the evidence of the previous tenant is gradually fading. In drawing a line from the early Showa Era to the current early Heisei Era, the points remembered form a dotted line, and as time passes, the distance between points grows. Our idea of keeping the room is not to intervene in the progress of time, but rather to have a look back- and forward – from a common point of (still changing) reference. As the current tenants of the room, we all are also drawing our own lines. This is core to the project. We don’t know how these new lines will interweave with each other and with lines from the past – including those disappearing – as time flows forward and carries us somewhere into the future.
The project has two basic rules:
– Each member contributes towards the rent to keep the room.
– Each member of the group who uses the room must respect and maintain the core principles of the project, the direction of which is an ongoing process.
This is an experimental project, so please check the schedule before visiting Room 306 in the Okuno Building.
