To witness a prime example of how corporate giants can meaningfully insert themselves into the life of a city without plastering their branding all over the place, make your way to Tokyo’s Ginza district. If you’ve visited at any time over the past eight years, you might have observed the transformation of one of its most prominent corners, Sukiyabashi Crossing, once the most expensive piece of real estate in the city. First came the demolition in 2017 of the Sony Building, a towering slice of futurism that originally had 2,300 cathode-ray tubes on its façade. Built in 1966 by architect Yoshinobu Ashihara, the then state-of-the-art structure defined the vision of its creator, Sony co-founder Akio Morita, and announced the ambition of one of Japan’s greatest brands.

Once the old building had gone, Sony turned the blank space into a temporary site for events and pop-ups, as well as somewhere to take a breather. With its lush plants, it was an arresting sight that drew eight and a half million people over three years. Now a new landmark has emerged: Ginza Sony Park, an intriguing hunk of raw concrete open to the street and the elements.

“The previous Sony Building was a showcase for electronics,” says Sony Enterprise president Daisuke Nagano, who has overseen the process. “But our business is now more diversified – music, movies, games, electronics. The challenge was to create something that matched where we are now.” In recent years the streets of Ginza have become a forest of high-rise towers designed for global luxury brands by the world’s finest architects. Ginza Sony Park is different: about half the height of its neighbours and with almost no branding. Nagano didn’t have to worry about the usual commercial pressures – there are no tenants – and the design was a team effort rather than the work of one famous architect. “People remember the Walkman, not who designed it,” he says. “That’s very Sony.”

The structure is not a conventional showroom and has no offices. It’s a free public space that will be a platform for exhibitions, music and ideas. “The building is not meant to be a big showpiece,” says Nagano. “It’s more like a smartphone, which depends on the apps that are added.” The team also thought hard about the meaning of a park. “We felt that it should be considered basic infrastructure, like a bridge or a highway, and we wanted the materials – raw concrete and steel – to reflect that.” The building is open to the street above ground and connects to the subway and underground car park below below. Fragments of the Sony Building have been retained in the underground entrance as a reminder of the site’s past life.

Ginza Sony Park gives back to the Tokyo public the tradition of wandering around the Ginza district and echoes the staggered-petal design of the old Sony Building as it spirals down, allowing visitors a vertical stroll from top to bottom. It isn’t sealed off from the world: the central stairwell is uncovered, so when it rains, you can feel it. It also enjoys the shakkei (borrowed scenery) of Renzo Piano’s remarkable glass-brick building for Hermès next door and has an open rooftop with a bird’s-eye view of the district.

Construction was completed last summer and the pre-opening phase featured Art in the Park, an exhibition of new works by three Japanese artists. Nagano sees potential for the building to be used for social messaging too – the chunky exterior metal grid has already exhibited giant images of endangered animals. Following the grand opening on 26 January, the first event is the Sony Park Exhibition 2025, designed to show six core Sony themes via interactive installations that reference everything from music and gaming to cinema.

Japanese corporations have a long history of cultural engagement but these endeavours are increasingly under pressure from bossy shareholders who seem to know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Where, they ask, is the return on an art museum? Ginza Sony Park shows that there doesn’t have to be a quantifiable financial return but, as an exercise in showing Sony as an innovative creative force, it works on its own terms.

In its own way, Ginza Sony Park is as radical as its 1966 predecessor and sets out the company’s mission in the 21st century to be collaborative and open to ideas. Nagano hopes that it will inspire Sony’s creatives too. — L
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