Roppongi Hills

Roppongi Hills (六本木ヒルズ, Roppongi Hiruzu) is a development project in Tokyo and one of Japan's largest integrated property developments, located in the Roppongi district of Minato, Tokyo. The architecture and use of the space is documented in the book Six Strata: Roppongi Hills Redefined.

Constructed by building tycoon Minoru Mori, the mega-complex incorporates office space, apartments, shops, restaurants, cafés, movie theatres, a museum, a hotel, a major TV studio, an outdoor amphitheatre, and a few parks. The centerpiece is the 54-story Mori Tower. Mori's stated vision was to build an integrated development where high-rise inner-urban communities allow people to live, work, play, and shop in proximity to eliminate commuting time. He argued that this would increase leisure time, quality of life, and benefit Japan's national competitiveness. Seventeen years after the design's initial conception, the complex opened to the public on April 25, 2003.

The development

Roppongi Hills cost over $4 billion and is built on a 27-acre (109,000 m²) site. The site amalgamated more than 400 smaller lots Mori acquired over 14 years.

Roppongi

Roppongi (六本木, literally "six trees") is a district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan, famous as home to the rich Roppongi Hills area and an active night club scene. Many foreign embassies are located in Roppongi, and the night life is popular with locals and foreigners alike. It is in the central part of Tokyo, south of Akasaka and north of Azabu.

History

The name "Roppongi", which appears to have been coined around 1660, literally means "six trees". Six very old and large zelkova trees used to mark the area; the first three were cleared, and the last were destroyed during World War II. Another legend has it that the name comes from the fact that six daimyo lived nearby during the Edo period, each with the kanji character for "tree" or a kind of tree in their names. Roppongi was not extensively populated until after the Meiji Restoration, although the area was trafficked for centuries and served as the site of the cremation of Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada's wife in 1626.

In 1890, the Third Imperial Guard of the Imperial Japanese Army was moved to a site near Roppongi (now home to the Pacific bureau of Stars and Stripes). The influx of soldiers led to the area's rise as a nightlife district, briefly interrupted by the Great Kanto earthquake which flattened the area in 1923. Roppongi was administratively part of Azabu Ward from 1878 to 1947.