JR East Headquarters Building, Office building and skyscraper in Yoyogi, Japan.
The JR East Headquarters Building is a 28-storey, 150.15-metre tower in Yoyogi, next to Shinjuku Station's south exit. Its design by Nikken Sekkei and JR East Design uses a superframe structure with few columns, and two curved facades of different sizes reduce radio-wave reflection and give the building a front. It stands beside the Odakyu Southern Tower on a 10-metre artificial deck above Odakyu tracks, with the Shinjuku Southern Terrace open space on top.
JR East used the former Japanese National Railways headquarters in Marunouchi from 1987, but the site was sold and the building demolished. The new headquarters near Shinjuku Station's south exit broke ground in September 1994 and was completed on 17 September 1997, with operations starting on 29 September. It was designed by a joint venture of Nikken Sekkei and JR East Design.
The building's name is tied to the site: it replaced the former Japanese National Railways headquarters in Marunouchi, which JR East used from 1987 until the move to Shinjuku in 1997. The old headquarters had a railway shrine on its roof, dedicated to employees who died in railway accidents; it was later moved to JR East's Tokyo branch headquarters.
The building sits in a convenient central location in Yoyogi with good access by public transportation. Visitors should know this is an active headquarters building, so entry and viewing options may be limited to exterior observation.
The tower's two curved facades, one large and one small, were designed to reduce radio-wave reflection and give the building a clear front. Its superframe structure creates column-light floors, and the site sits on a 10-meter artificial deck built over Odakyu tracks, shared with the Odakyu Southern Tower and Shinjuku Southern Terrace.
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