Tourism Historical Harajuku Station building to be demolished

It is very sad to know that another one of Tokyo's historical buildings will be demolished. This time it is the Harajuku Station building which is going to be reconstructed after the Olympics next year. The half-timbered structure was finished in 1924 and does not meet the fire safety requirements of the Building Standard Law. It has not been decided yet how much of the original design will be incorporated into the new building. It would be marvellous if the original building was relocated and preserved in a new location such as the Edo-Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum in Koganei.


Photo credit: Kuremo/Dreamstime


The building before its inauguration in 1924 (photo credit: Railway Museum)

Here's what the new station will look like:




The new ticket gates

It will be a shame to lose the historical architecture, but Harajuku Station is ridiculously small and underequipped with ticket gates given the vast volume of passengers it serves every day, so I don't doubt this is somewhat necessary.

Still, would it have killed them to find a way to preserve if not the building itself, at least the spirit of it? This generic looking 再開発 is both boring and depressing to me. Places like 下北沢 are a shell of what they were even ten years ago.

Just the opInion of an old curmudgeon, though.

Yesterday, the new Harajuku Station building was unveiled to the media ahead of its opening on 21 March. The old historical building will be demolished after the Paralympic Games but some of its features will be incorporated in a new nearby commercial building.

The posts below seem to be quite representative of the public opinion.

bentenmusume said:

It will be a shame to lose the historical architecture, but Harajuku Station is ridiculously small and underequipped with ticket gates given the vast volume of passengers it serves every day, so I don't doubt this is somewhat necessary.

Still, would it have killed them to find a way to preserve if not the building itself, at least the spirit of it? This generic looking 再開発 is both boring and depressing to me. Places like 下北沢 are a shell of what they were even ten years ago.

Just the opInion of an old curmudgeon, though.

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Indeed, you'd think that the developers could have included a few slopes in the design as a nod to the old building. Instead it looks like a small shopping centre.
As you said, Shimo Kitazawa has lost a lot of its personality, and that giant video screen, which is one of the first things you see after getting off the Keio line, is a real eyesore.
And it's likely that Koenji will be the next victim of 'development', although the residents are fighting it.