Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka
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| Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka | |
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| General information | |
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| Completed | 1982 (new tower) |
| Opening | 1955 |
The Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka (グランドプリンスホテル赤坂 Gurando Purinsu Hoteru Akasaka?) was an upscale hotel in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The site of the former hotel is now the location of a mixed use development named Tokyo Garden Terrace.
A design of leading Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, the hotel was well known for its "distinctive saw-toothed facade" of aluminum and glass.[1] Following closure it became notable for being deconstructed in a top-down approach, the building appearing to shrink in height over time.
History
The original hotel, opened in 1955, was located in the Kitashirakawa Palace, built in 1930 as the residence of Yi Un, the last crown prince of Korea. The newer tower building designed by architech Kenzo Tange and completed in 1982 was 40 stories tall and laminated in aluminium. Because of its proximity to Nagatachō Station and the National Diet buildings, it was often used by Japanese politicians for meetings and press conferences.
For most of its life, the hotel operated as the Akasaka Prince Hotel, but in 2007 the hotel was renamed Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka following the reorganization of the Prince hotel group.
When its closure was scheduled, Akasaka Prince Hotel tower was relatively new, being expected to last further decades with proper maintenance and renovation, it was one of the buildings that "fell victim to the vagaries of commercial real estate here, where high property values, changing design standards and other factors have conspired to create a bull market for demolition".[1] It had low ceilings like many office contemporaries built in the 1970s during the country's economic boom (height standards were increased in the 1990s to accommodate information technology infrastructure). In recent years it faced competition from upscale hotels run by foreign companies.[1]
Although it closed as a hotel in March 2011, after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the Akasaka Prince Hotel housed evacuees from Fukushima prefecture.[2]
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The hotel in 2007
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Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka 2007-04.jpg
The hotel in 2007
Closure and demolition
The hotel closed in March 2011 for demolition.[3]
The top floors of the building have been used as a working space for deconstruction, and these are gradually jacked down and lowered as each intermediate floor is removed. As of February 2013 the building had shrunk by 30 metres.[4] Regenerative braking is used on the cranes being used to lower disassembled elements down to ground level, which recovers energy and generates electricity for powering aspects of the demolition operation.[5]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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External links
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles needing translation from foreign-language Wikipedias
- Articles containing Japanese-language text
- Official website not in Wikidata
- Use dmy dates from July 2011
- Hotel buildings completed in 1955
- Hotel buildings completed in 1982
- Hotels in Japan
- Skyscrapers in Tokyo
- Hotels established in 1955
- Modernist architecture in Japan
- Hotels disestablished in 2011
- Buildings and structures demolished in 2013
- 2011 disestablishments in Japan
- 1955 establishments in Japan
