Feature — 2026.08.20

Walking the Architecture of Marunouchi

A Walk Through Marunouchi

Photo: MaedaAkihiko, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons — Tokyo Station Marunouchi Building

From a red-brick station to a reconstructed Meiji office and a hall of glass. A walk through the strata of Japan's business district, spanning more than a century.

01Starting at the red-brick station

Begin your walk at the Tokyo Station Marunouchi Building. Look up at the north and south domes restored in the 2012 preservation and restoration work, then, with Gyōkō-dōri at your back, take in the whole station. Its façade, some 335 m long, conveys the scale of this district.

02Meiji brick and a great space of glass

Walk south to find Mitsubishi Ichigokan, a reconstruction of Marunouchi's first office building, and its courtyard plaza. Further on, the Glass Building of the Tokyo International Forum appears. Meiji brick, and the steel and glass of the late 20th century: within a few hundred metres, a century of change in building technology stands side by side.

03Further afield, to Nihonbashi and Ginza

If time allows, venture north to the colonnade of the Mitsui Main Building in Nihonbashi, or south to the clock tower of the Wako Main Building at Ginza 4-chōme. These early Shōwa stone buildings still stand as the faces of their districts.

Facts about the buildings mentioned in this article are based on the sources cited on each building page (Wikipedia, Wikidata, official websites, etc.).This description has been translated from the Japanese original.