Shinjuku Nomura Building, Corporate skyscraper in Nishi-Shinjuku, Japan.
Shinjuku Nomura Building is a 50-storey, 209-metre skyscraper in Nishi-Shinjuku, Tokyo, completed in 1978. Its white facade is divided by a dense grid of small rectangular windows, with a wide unbroken band of light cladding running up the centre and a narrower matching band at the left edge. The flat roof caps a shaft that houses offices, basement restaurants and shops, and dining floors on 49 and 50.
Nomura Real Estate sought a skyscraper site at the former Yodobashi water purification plant, lost the 1969 tender, then bought a plot from Kumagai Gumi in December 1972. Construction, advised by planner Hideo Takayama with Yasui Architects, was interrupted by the oil crisis and resumed in 1975. The building was completed on 1 June 1978, nine years after the original plan.
The name comes from Nomura Real Estate, which moved its headquarters here from Nihonbashi in June 1978. The basement floors B1 and B2 hold about 25 restaurants and shops, while floors 49 and 50 form a restaurant zone with a free observation lobby on the 50th. On holidays the plaza in front of the building sometimes hosts flea markets and other events.
The building is accessible from early morning until late evening via the nearby station. Visitors should know that it houses mainly office spaces, but the public areas including restaurants and shops are easy to navigate through.
The building appears in tokusatsu footage: its northeast corner features in the opening of Dengeki Sentai Changeman (1985), and Maskman (1987) filmed a rooftop scene there, crediting the Shinjuku Nomura Building in its ending. Its site was still an empty lot when a character was stabbed in Taiyō ni Hoero! (1973).
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