Aoyama Technical School

Giant robo-cockroach building devours Tokyo

Category Repositories of Knowledge

Located on an unassuming residential street in Daikanyama, the Aoyama Technical School's hulking metallic form has been known to give passersby quite a surprise. It lurks around a sharp corner, seeming to pounce out at you at the last minute as it preys on the rickety old wooden house below. But if you approach it from other angles it is visible long before you arrive, with mysterious red antenna poking out between neighboring apartment blocks.

The school, which opened in 1990 as the first building by architect Makoto Sei Watanabe, was designed to house the Shibuya campus of a trade school. What possessed Sei to design it as a giant alien space bug? The architect's website says:

"This building consists of many parts. They all are essential architectural elements-posts, water tanks, lightning rod, joints of various kinds. But these parts, even after fulfilling their required functions, maintain the momentum of their growth, rising up like so many young shoots flourishing upon a sufficient supply of water and light." So that clears everything right up, then...

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  • Hours Exterior viewable 24 hours
  • Website Official site (in Japanese)
  • Address 7-9 Uguisudanicho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-0032, Japan
  • Cost Free
Map/Directions

No map available.

Located roughly halfway between Shibuya and Ebisu JR stations. From Shibuya, follow the street by he train tracks and take a right after the Lawsons convenience store. Its about a 20 minute walk.

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Comments

  • & Anonymous November 9, 2009
    Looks like a neat place to take a snapshot of. (By the way, the map is broken...)

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