It's midnight in Akasaka's second chōme block, situated near the northern edge of Minato City, Tokyo. On the 5th floor of the Akasaka Sannō Kaikan building, Mājānya, a nocturnal Mahjong parlour, begins its nightly closure after a day filled with the clamour of Mahjong tiles and a lunchtime curry service. Imagine the intensity of lunching on curry rice whilst Mahjong battles play out all around. An hour or so earlier, a throng of men emerged from the basement’s live house, buoyed by an electrifying J-pop idol showcase. Much glowstick waving was had to impassioned performances by emerging starlets of the idol underground.

With the arrival of morning, sharply suited employees of the Mita Corporation, an estate agent established in the 1960s, will start to fill the building's 7th and 9th floors for another day spent matching apartment-hunting Tokyoites with rental properties. Slotted between them on the 8th floor, the fashion-forward stylists at Salon Ryu ensure Tokyo's young professional women remain impeccably coiffed, attending to every strand of hair with precision. Down on the 3rd floor, the Akasaka branch of Goo-it massage clinic readies itself to offer relief to Minato City's elderly.

Later that day, the building's restaurants will begin to warm their kitchens and display their kanban signs. The fast-food steak chain Ikinari dishes out searing hotplates of cut steak and rice to hungry salarymen. In contrast, Sumiyaki Ryōri Hayashi offers a rustic ambiance with its traditional sunken hearth and charcoal fire, serving some of the city's finest oyakodon. Concealed on the fourth floor of what might be mistaken for a weathered, nondescript office block—a bland, glass-fronted cubic structure with grey cladding and no distinctive features—exists this homely restaurant, more akin to the inside of a UNESCO-listed thatched cottage in the countryside.

That might have escalated quickly, but the activities of the Akasaka Sannō Kaikan building are typical of those found across Tokyo in similarly occupied multi-storey buildings. A cacophony of businesses, stacked one atop the other, conducting unrelated trades, attracting a diverse clientele. I'd like to remove the glass facade of a building like Sannō Kaikan to reveal its intricate internal dynamics, like a 3D cross-section diagram.

I can't quite pinpoint the moment I first stepped into such a building—it could have been for an eye test, a Japanese lesson, or a low-budget karaoke session that stretched into the night. I remember the sensation of being an outsider, unfamiliar with the norms and etiquette of the space. A mistaken press of the elevator button led me to the wrong floor, and the doors opened to reveal a restaurant I had no intention of visiting, with no corridor for a buffer to correct my error or regain my composure.

At the time, I was unaware of the type of building I was in, only knowing that foreigners more seasoned than myself had remarked that, here, you miss out on a lot by staying at ground level. Tokyo indeed embraces verticality in city living, hosting a variety of activities on its higher floors, unlike cities like London, where the upper levels are primarily used for offices and flats. In time, navigating these vertical streets becomes an integral part of experiencing Tokyo.

For a time, I held a passing interest in Tokyo's vertical plane, but it wasn't until I encountered Jorge Almazan + Studiolab’s remarkable Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City that I came to know the Japanese term zakkyo building. Almazan and his lab skilfully dissect this concept, illuminating its historical and urban significance. For our exploration, I'll draw upon their concise descriptions:

The term zakkyo, literally meaning 'coexisting miscellany', primarily refers to multi-tenant buildings containing a mixture of offices with a wide range of consumer establishments … Zakkyo buildings often appear in the dense commercial districts of Mercantile Tokyo that surround many train stations, where land prices are high but potential customers are numerous.

Akasaka Sannō Kaikan qualifies as a zakkyo building, a multi-storey edifice brimming with varied businesses, situated minutes from Akasaka Station on a coveted corner lot along the exorbitantly priced Akasaka Dōri. Its plain commercial architecture, more reminiscent of an office structure, signals its identity as an old-school zakkyo building. Constructed in 1964, the year Tokyo first hosted the Olympics, it hails from an era when office buildings started accommodating businesses beyond the typical office scope. Almazan + Studiolab characterise this phenomenon as a form of settlement.

A large share of today’s zakkyo buildings did not begin their lives as such. In many cases they were simply generic construction … occupied as multi-tenant low-rent office buildings … Over time, however, they became Zakkyo buildings through a gradual vertical colonization by incoming enterprises.

Newer zakkyo buildings are often designed with a specific purpose in mind, sometimes featuring creative designs and embellishments, or facades tailored to a particular type of business. One of my beloved classics is the Gekkō (Moonlight) Building, located in an alleyway in Ginza 7-chōme. This building is adorned with a checkerboard of square luminescent tiles, showcasing a motif of maple leaves and starlight. Prominently at its centre is a large panel depicting a glowing harvest moon, which anchors the eye. Vertical neon strips on either side add a pulse of blue to the night. True to its aesthetic, it houses businesses that thrive in the night—whiskey bars, secluded restaurants, and lounges that welcome guests into the late hours.

The term zakkyo building was coined by the mass media during the bubble era of the 1980s, a time when zakkyo buildings were proliferating in tandem with soaring real estate and stock market prices. It isn't a term officially recognised in planning legislation and carries mixed connotations. Notable incidents have occurred where individuals entered a zakkyo building and never made it out alive. In 2010, Hoon "Scott" Kang, a student of Korean-American heritage, suffered a tragic fate in the Collins Building located in Shinjuku. In a more recent and equally sorrowful event last year, 29 year old temp employee Tatsushima Arisa, was found to have met an untimely end in the Susumi Building in Kumamoto. Elements of organised crime, such as black market financiers charging illegal interest rates, may also find a home in a zakkyo building. Sometimes, a syndicate might own the building, using the guise of multi-tenancy to obscure direct involvement with illicit enterprises housed within.

Japan's mizu shōbai, literally 'the water trade'—encompassing the fluid entertainment and nightlife sectors, where earnings hinge more on client favour than standard salaries—is often linked with zakkyo buildings. Clusters of zakkyo buildings housing little other than cabarets and hostess clubs are not uncommon. Misuji Dōri, the side street on whose corner Akasaka Sannō Kaikan sits, has several constructions fitting this description, some glitzier than others. Google reviews by Japanese patrons of eateries like Sumiyaki Ryōrikan Hayashida, situated in zakkyo buildings, sometimes begin with a cautious acknowledgement: "the building was a bit zakkyo, but…". Despite Tokyo's, and by extension, Japan's, reputation for safety, crossing the threshold of certain zakkyo buildings can feel sketchy.

Tokyo's burgeoning array of luxury skyscraper developments, though multi-storey and mixed-use, don't fall under the "zakkyo" category. Zakkyo buildings have a grassroots essence—less contrived, more adaptable—maintaining relevance over the years through a revolving door of business proprietors. In contrast, projects like Ark Hills, straddling the Akasaka, Roppongi, and Kasumigaseki areas, have gradually lost their lustre as each subsequent development in what has become the “Hills” series eclipses its predecessors. Securing office space in complexes like Ark Hills remains prohibitively expensive, with tenancy being selectively managed. The idea of hosting a karaoke bar or a pachinko parlour there seems far-fetched, and understandably so. But in a zakkyo building, it doesn't matter. Flexible and relatively affordable tsubos of space await Tokyo's enterprising minds.

Zakkyo buildings have become emblematic of Japan in the global psyche. Envision the cinematic moment of Bob Harris in Lost in Translation, arriving in Tokyo in a jet-lagged daze, with the luminous signs of Shinjuku's Yasukuni Dōri casting an atmospheric reflection on his taxi window. The undeniable allure of Tokyo's enigmatic lights; Mahjong parlours serving curry. The vertical strips of neon signage that often run along the side of zakkyo buildings play a significant role here. The graphic design of each sign, aimed at capturing the attention of street-level passersby, is of no great beauty viewed individually, yet, collectively, the aggregation of signs—one for each business and one strip per building—creates a visually arresting tableau.

Jorge Almazan + Studiolab draw a compelling parallel, aligning the zakkyo cityscape of Yasukuni Dōri with icons like The Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and the Empire State Building in terms of their evocative representation of their cities. A wild mix of commercial operations in a stretch of haphazardly arranged office buildings, alongside the architectural and engineering wonders of Europe and the United States.

The vertical neon signage of Japanese cities might seem like an entirely post-modern happening, emerging from the ruins of World War II and coinciding with economic growth and westernisation, but distinguished urban historian Jinnai Hidenobu traces the origins of places like Shinjuku and Dotonbori in Osaka back to the theatres of the Tokugawa period (1603–1868). Theatres and tea houses were interwoven into the streets of the entertainment districts in Edo, now known as Tokyo, each marked by tall, fluttering banners, showcasing the establishment’s name in vertically arranged calligraphy. Noren curtains embellished the entrances, while large billboards on the upper floors often concealed the buildings behind them. It doesn’t sound altogether unfamiliar, does it?

Jinnai, however, sees the streets of historical Edo as a harmonious beauty, born from the communal efforts of its residents, and the present-day appearance of zakkyo-lined avenues as a vulgar, raucous affair. Certainly, the enchantment of these urban landscapes is heightened for those who have yet to learn to read Japanese. Bob Harris was never to know that the close up of a mesmerising animated sign adorned with gothic style Japanese characters, actually belongs to an innocuous pharmacy chain. And maybe it is better that way, enabling the uninitiated to appreciate the collective radiance as a singular, magnificent display, unhindered by the true nature of its components—unlike Jinnai.

In Tokyotheque #1, when I recounted my first impressions of the metropolis in 2009, observed from the Narita Express on my approach to Shinjuku, it turns out to have been, in part, zakkyo buildings that captured my attention. My very own Bob Harris moment. However, extended time in Tokyo led me to places like Akasaka Sannō Kaikan to sample award-winning bowls of chicken, rice, and egg amidst transformative settings. A fuller appreciation of zakkyo buildings—their architectural diversity and their broad utility—has only elevated my experience. I hope this edition of the newsletter enriches your engagement with Tokyo’s urban landscapes, whether you're navigating Japan firsthand or admiring Japanese cityscapes online, where there is no shortage of zakkyo eye candy.

Until we meet in Tokyo,

AJ

Links

Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City

Newsletters of Reference

Tokyothèque #1: Tokyo Arrivals

Last Week's Newsletter

Tokyothèque #2: A Tokyo Neighbourhood Walk