Construction of Tokyo Midtown Hibiya Completed February 1
January 30, 2018
Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd.
Tokyo, Japan, January 30, 2018 - Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd., a leading global real estate company headquartered in Tokyo, announced today that a ceremony was held to mark the completion of Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, a large-scale, mixed-use development project underway in Yurakucho 1-chome, Chiyoda-ku. A grand opening is scheduled for March 29.
Tokyo Midtown Hibiya is designed to play a central role in neighborhood creation for international business, the arts and culture in the Hibiya area. The goal is to support the creation of new industries, while functioning as a hub for artistic and cultural events in collaboration with Hibiya Park and theaters and cinemas in the vicinity.
In neighborhood creation for international business, the feature tentatively named the Hibiya Business Collaboration Hub will now be called BASE Q, and beginning in April 2018, will serve as a center for interaction among people aiming to create new value and address social issues. In June 2018, Mitsui Fudosan, Dentsu Inc. and EY Japan will collaborate in offering major firms the opportunity to work with venture companies and others in creating new business by providing hands-on support through the Open Innovation Program.
In addition, as part of neighborhood creation for culture and the arts, Mitsui Fudosan has decided to hold the Hibiya Festival, an event scheduled for April 26 through May 20, 2018, and intended to offer the enjoyment of theater from Hibiya to the world. The festival is designed to bring greater familiarity with the arts, culture and entertainment, centered on Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, while bringing the entire area together through collaboration among a wide variety of nearby businesses and facilities.
*EY Japan is the collective name for the member firms of Ernst & Young (EY) in Japan.
Summary of this Release
Business Collaboration Hub BASE Q to Launch on the Sixth Floor of Tokyo Midtown Hibiya in April 2018
BASE Q, a center for interaction among people aiming to create new value and address social issues, including venture companies and NPOs, those in charge of new business at major firms, creators and others, will launch in April 2018.
Amon Miyamoto to Produce an Opening Show for the Hibiya Festival Celebrating the Theater
The Hibiya Festival will be held over 25 days between April 26 and May 20, 2018, an opportunity to enjoy a wide variety of theatrical arts including plays, dance, musicals and opera. The entire area will come together to present a quality theater experience, broadcasting the allure of Hibiya as center for theater. The first day of the festival will be enlivened by an original opening show presented on an outdoor stage and open to all, produced by famed director Amon Miyamoto.
* Perspective images are shown for illustration purposes only and are subject to change.
1.Tokyo Midtown Hibiya
Tokyo Midtown embodies Mitsui Fudosan’s downtown mixed-use neighborhood creation brand. The company’s goal is to leverage each district’s unique character while achieving long-term optimization that will only improve with age.
Hibiya is home to quality art and culture, including theaters and cinemas, as well as to the luxurious greenery of Hibiya Park. Combining these existing assets with the ability of Tokyo Midtown Hibiya to provide the latest in art and culture, and a framework for creating new industries, will allow Mitsui Fudosan to generate and offer an unprecedent level of value and experience that is truly unique to Hibiya. Tokyo Midtown Hibiya aims to maximize the potential of the Hibiya area, while also providing neighborhood creation functions that generate new, future-oriented experiences and values, and a bustling urban center that exudes quality.
Tokyo Midtown Hibiya comprises a mixed-use facility of offices and commercial space offering approx. 2,034,379 ft2 (approx. 189,000 m2) of floor space across 4 underground and 35 above-ground floors. Offices will be located on floors 11 through 34, with a lobby on the 9th and 10th floors with views overlooking Hibiya Park. Designed under the concept of Business Hospitality, offices will support flexible workstyles by offering advanced functions and services. Commercial facilities occupy floors B1 through seven, including restaurants offering views of Hibiya Park and lifestyle shops offering everyday luxury, with a total of 60 unique retail businesses that include the TOHO Cinemas Hibiya multiplex theater.
Key Facilities
Click map to enlarge
2. BASE Q , a Business Collaboration Hub to Support the Creation of New Industries
BASE Q, a hub for interaction among people aiming to create new value and address social issues, including venture companies and NPOs, those in charge of new business at major firms, creators and others, will open on the 6th floor.
Q HALL, with a capacity of up to 450 people, will also be located in BASE Q. It will serve as a venue to host and attract events from a visionary, inter-disciplinary perspective, offering cutting-edge information, forecasting the future of society, uncovering social issues and promoting collaboration among different fields.
Q Cafe, meanwhile, is designed to function as a place for the venture companies, creators and others who gather at BASE Q to work and interact. In addition to a Café space available for general use, it offers working spaces that can be reserved for an hourly fee. With its views of Hibiya Park and the outer gardens of the Imperial Palace, this open space will provide a relaxed hub for work and meetings.
The most prominent features of BASE Q will be the Q LOUNGE, a members-only community space, and the Open Innovation Program that will be offered there. The program is intended to assist major companies in engaging in open innovation, a business creation process that primarily involves collaboration with venture companies. Through its partnership with DENTSU Inc. and EY Japan, Mitsui Fudosan will leverage the collective knowledge of the three companies in the areas of business creation and communicating with venture firms. A variety of services will be offered that provide appropriate support and advice across all of the processes needed to put into practice open innovation, including strategic organization, business matching and business co-creation.
As more large companies in recent years have become involved in efforts to create new business and achieve innovation, open innovation is attracting attention as one method for doing so. Through this program, Mitsui Fudosan hopes to help even more major firms achieve results through open innovation, while also contributing to the growth of venture companies and the revitalization of the Japanese economy.
Choice of Name/Inspiration for the Logo
The name BASE Q is a combination of the word “base” and the first letter of the word “question.”
Based on the concept of considering and creating better questions and eliciting better answers, the name was chosen in the hope that BASE Q will become a place where a diversity of individuals can synergize and together identify answers.
The logo embodies the idea that new things solutions to intractable issues can be found and new things discovered by changing one’s point of view. The logo itself is designed to represent a question in a way that symbolizes discovery, surprise and flexible ideas.
BASE Q Statement
Better questions and eliciting better answers.
The people that gather here represent all sorts.
They may be in-house entrepreneurs, technologists or creators, they may even be civil servants or work for regional municipal governments.
Regardless of differences in background or affiliation, however, they all have one thing in common.
They are all determined to pursue and address the questions that will change the world.
Questions that lead to an unknown technology.
Questions that help society move in a better direction.
Questions that people ask in an effort to build a new age.
Conventional wisdom cannot be overturned simply by solving the problems one is given.
This is why we must create new questions for ourselves.
And by intermingling and synergizing, we develop answers never seen before.
Answers we call “innovation.”
BASE Q Floor Layout
Click map to enlarge
3.The Hibiya Festival, a Community-wide Celebration of Theater
The Hibiya Festival
The Hibiya Festival will launch across the entire Hibiya area in 2018, an event designed to make theater-going a more familiar experience. At Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, a variety of stage performances will be presented, including theater, dance, musicals and opera, as befits a center of art, culture and entertainment. The opening ceremony will feature a special, one-night-only show produced by theatrical director Amon Miyamoto.
During the festival, nearby facilities will also cooperate in offering free performances of legitimate opera and theater in shortened formats. Plans are also underway for events at the Imperial Hotel, Hibiya Park and other venues, making this festival one that will literally blanket the Hibiya area in theater.
Organizers: Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd.; Hibiya Area Management
Cooperation: The Imperial Hotel, Toho Co., Ltd.; Nissay Culture Foundation (Nissay Theater); Nippon Broadcasting System, Inc., and others
Dates: Thursday, April 26 to Sunday, May 20, 2018 (25 days) Core dates: Friday, April 27 to Sunday, May 6
Opening ceremony: Thursday, April 26
- Opening Ceremony
Location: Hibiya Step Square Date: Thursday, April 26
A one-night-only opening performance directed by Amon Miyamoto!
During the day from Friday, April 27 to Sunday, May 6, nearby facilities will cooperate in holding free performances of opera and other live theater.
Perspective images are shown for illustration purposes only and are subject to change.
- Symbolic Art Piece Flora
Location: Hibiya Step Square Dates: Thursday, April 26 to Sunday, May 20
“Flora,” an iconic sculpture of a young girl by artist Kenji Yanobe, to appear at the festival!
Under the direction of Amon Miyamoto, “Flora,” one of Kenji Yanobe’s representative works (with costuming by Sebastian Masuda) will be recreated and given new life especially for the festival. The sculpture, which stands approx. 13 foot (approx. 4 meters) high, will be given a new look inspired by Amon Miyamoto’s concept of “the girl who yearns to visit Rokumeikan,” a reference to the famous Meiji era social meeting place that once stood in Hibiya and represented the beginnings of the Westernization of Japan. The sculpture represents both the idea that modern civilization flowered from Hibiya, and the realization of a new hope, and will serve as the festival’s symbol.
A special nighttime performance is planned to coincide with the rising of the sculpture as it awakens.
©2015 Kenji Yanobe, Sebastian Masuda
Comment from Amon Miyamoto, Director
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The Hibiya area is deeply significant for the leading role it played in Japan’s Westernization approx. 135 years ago, with buildings such as the Rokumeikan and the State Guest House.
Later, the performing arts also flowered here alongside numerous movie theaters, and have enthralled millions over the years.
The image I drew from this history was of a young girl dreaming. Aspiring to society circles she falls in love, becomes intoxicated by music, dance and other entertainment, and experiences pain as she looks to the future and grows.
A period of 150 years flows swiftly along with the story, like a waltz, a story which I hope will also depict the near future.
For this festival, I have asked Kenji Yanobe to create a young girl as a symbol that looks out on the past and future of Hibiya.
I hope everyone will enjoy this colorful, one-night-only performance, and my first collaboration with the art of Kenji Yanobe.
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- The Stage
Location: Q HALL (located in BASE Q) Dates: Friday, April 27 to Sunday, May 6
A number of up-and-coming artists will present performances in Q HALL (admission charged)
Enjoy full-fledged stage performances from seats close enough to feel the actors breathing. A diverse range of productions is planned around a theme of “fusion,” with content that fuses digital and live action.
Principal Artists
- DAZZLE
In addition to being the world’s only performers of a unique dance style that fuses street and contemporary dance, this dance company continues to enthrall audiences with richly creative productions that feature a strong story element. They have won numerous awards at dance competitions both at home and abroad.
- Rui Rui
Contemporary dancer Yoshihiro Fujita (the Condors) and pantomime artist Kazuaki Maruyama team to create this silent theater unit. Together they transform everyday objects to create an imaginary world, charming audiences with their unique and unexpected ideas in a story that lies between theater and dance.
- Orientalism
With a style that synchronizes live performance with video, this group’s projection performances have been highly acclaimed around the world. Consisting of invited artists from various countries, the group expresses traditional cultural concepts specific to Japan, including movement, rhythm and spirituality, in the form of composite art.
- REVO
This dance company is led by Uran Hirosaki, a choreographer and director who is active in a variety of fields, including theater, musicals and opera. Their original productions, featuring star-studded casts that go beyond the boundaries of dance, are much talked about.
- The Nissay Theater 55 Anniversary Performance: Mozart Series “Opera”
The Nissay Theater, which opened in Hibiya in 1963, celebrates its 55th anniversary this year with a concert featuring works performed by opera singers, with pieces selected from four of Mozart’s best-known operas. This performance, offering the appeal of opera in concentrated form, is presented through the cooperation of the Fujiwara Opera and the Tokyo Nikikai Opera Theater.
Photos courtesy of: Nissay Culture Foundation (Nissay Theater)
Photos: Chikashi Saegusa
- Other Events
- A special lounge offering food and drinks will be set up for a limited time on the Hibiya Step Square.
- During the festival, the Imperial Hotel and other nearby facilities plan to hold a variety of special events.
- Collaboration is also planned for events to be held by Nippon Broadcasting.
