Tokyo: Building in ever-evolving Ginza remains unchanged for nearly 9 decades

The Okuno Building, which has remained standing in Ginza, Tokyo, for over 80 years. (Credit: The Yomiuri Shimbun)

In the ever-changing area of Tokyo's Ginza district, the Okuno building is a distinct anomaly, standing untouched for 88 years.

The building was originally a cutting-edge luxury rental apartment complex. Many of the tiles of the exterior walls have been left unchanged; the elevator with yellow bellows-style doors is still in use and the paint in the corridors is peeling off in spots, marking the history of the people who have come and gone through the building.

Today, more than 60 shops, mainly art galleries and antique shops, operate within the building, and prior to the spread of the novel coronavirus, it saw many visitors from Western countries. Each shop is given free rein to renovate the rooms as they please to create the space they desire. Building owner Tsuguo Okuno, 76, said, "We want to respect the wishes of those who wind up moving into this building because they have come to like it."

The elevator with yellow bellows-style doors is still in service. (Credit: The Yomiuri Shimbun)

With wallpaper that's peeling off, flooring that is about to be turned up, Room 306 is the only one that illustrates the passage of time since the building's completion. For the past 10 years or so, artists have been pooling their resources to rent the room for exhibitions; they also open it to the public on the sixth day of each month. There is also an experiment of sorts underway to preserve the dirt and damage caused by the passage of time.

Hirofumi Kurota, 56, an artist and the head of the project, describes the room as "a room similar to a dance hall with an extraordinary feeling that leaps out at you." The way this room compares to the other recently renovated rooms is almost identical to the way the anachronistic Okuno Building appears surrounded by the very modern Ginza.

In the room, there is a photograph of Yoshiko Suda, the building's "last resident," who rented the room shortly after the building's completion. She operated a beauty salon in this room and died in 2009, not long after turning 100 years old.

Hirofumi Kurota sits in front of the mirrors in Room 306, which once housed a beauty salon. (Credit: The Yomiuri Shimbun)

"It's in Ginza, but it doesn't feel like Ginza. I think it's good to have different kinds of buildings," Kurota said while staring at the rusted window frame.

In the corridor, the marks of people's comings and goings left over the years are seen. (Credit: The Yomiuri Shimbun)

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