The Palaceside Building (2)

2025-07-032025-07-04

I visited the Palaceside Building at the Tokyo Architecture Festival 2025, but at that time I was mainly looking at the rooftop and ended up not seeing the west side of the building.
Since I visited the National Museum of Modern Art the other day, let’s take another look at the Palaceside Building.

I must have passed this street many times, but it turned out that I had not been aware of the Palaceside Building until now. I had just been walking along the street, staring blankly ahead.
Thanks to the Tokyo Architecture Festival, I became aware of it.

This time, I wanted to check the large eave of the west side entrance, which I had overlooked on my last visit.

The entrance is now in view.
The white cylindrical part is 50 meters high.
The two rectangular buildings and the cylindrical part are separated from each other, and they were designed so that they would move independently of each other in the event of a major earthquake, so as not to affect the other buildings.

This is the west side entrance.

The eaves are supported by the central pillar.
Mist was released from the edge of the eaves to prevent heat.

The window area has a regular row of sunshade louvers and gutters.

Walking east along the road. This is the east entrance.
As mentioned in a previous article, the lot in front of the building was larger at the time of completion than it is now. This entrance also had a large eave, but it was removed when the road was widened.

I found the Palaceside Building used in an advertisement in a magazine published in 1966, so I cut out a portion of it and quote the following. (Source: Siporex Sales Corporation ad, “Architectural Monthly", December 1966 issue)

The eaves of the east entrance can be seen on the right.
And we see that cars were parking in front of the building.
The gutter appears to be lighter in color than it is now.

This is the east wall.

This is also the east wall. Looking up at the brick wall.

Incidentally, I went to the National Museum of Modern Art to see the Hilma af Klint exhibition. Although it was just before the end of the exhibition, I am glad I was able to see it.