is a 60-story,

mixed-use Mixed use is a type of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning classification that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions ...

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Most modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise bui ...

located in

Ikebukuro is a commercial and entertainment district in Toshima, Tokyo, Japan. Toshima ward offices, Ikebukuro Station, and several shops, restaurants, and department stores are located within city limits. Transportation At the center of Ikebukuro is ...

, Toshima,

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, adjoining the Sunshine City complex. At the time of its completion in 1978, the 239.7 m (787 ft) building was the tallest in Asia, a title it held until 1985 when it was surpassed by the 63 Building in

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

. Sunshine 60 was also the tallest building in Tokyo and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

until the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building was completed in 1991, and housed the world's fastest elevators (at ) until the opening of the Yokohama Landmark Tower in 1993;

Mitsubishi Electric is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational electronics and electrical equipment manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1921 as a spin-off from the electrical machinery manufacturing d ...

installed the elevators at the former's highest-rise bank as well as the latter, and

Mitsubishi Estate is one of the largest real estate developers in Japan and is involved in property management and architecture research and design. As of 2018, Mitsubishi Estate has the most valuable portfolio in the Japanese real estate industry, with a total ...

owns both buildings.

Construction

Sunshine 60's foundation is made of

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ...

. The lower segment of the building is also reinforced concrete with a

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

skeleton. The upper tower is a steel skeleton with "slitted shear walls". These unique walls were inserted between columns in the core, allowing the walls to conform to deformations in the steel frame caused by

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

s and

wind shear Wind shear (; also written windshear), sometimes referred to as wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and/or direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. Atmospheric wind shear is normally described as either vertical ...

helping to assure structural integrity. A rigid framing structural system creates the frame. Mechanical equipment is located directly above the core of the structure on its rooftop. Sunshine 60 was erected over the site of the destroyed

Sugamo Prison Sugamo Prison (''Sugamo Kōchi-sho'', Kyūjitai: , Shinjitai: ) was a prison in Tokyo, Japan. It was located in the district of Ikebukuro, which is now part of the Toshima 23 special wards, ward of Tokyo, Japan. History Sugamo Prison was orig ...

, famously used to hold senior Japanese war criminals during the occupation. On December 23, 1948, seven high-ranking, convicted war criminals (including former

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Hideki Tojo was a Japanese general and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1941 to 1944 during the Second World War. His leadership was marked by widespread state violence and mass killings perpetrated in the name of Japanese nationalis ...

) were hanged at the prison. It was also the site of the hanging of Soviet spy

Richard Sorge Richard Gustavovich Sorge (; 4 October 1895 – 7 November 1944) was a German-Russian journalist and GRU (Soviet Union), Soviet military intelligence officer who was active before and during World War II and worked undercover as a German journa ...

during the war. In popular modern lore, the area is rumored to be haunted.

Facilities

As a mixed-use high-rise, Sunshine 60's space is used for a variety of purposes. Floors 1 through 9 are used as commercial space and house a post office, banks, showrooms, cafeterias, a health care center and a day care center. Office space occupies floors 10 through 57. Restaurants are located on the 58th and 59th floors. From the 60th floor, visitors can see as far as 100 km on a clear day from Sunshine 60's observation deck (admission fee up to ¥620). To get visitors to the observation deck quickly, the observation deck bank of the tower's 40 elevators takes passengers directly from the lobby at a speed of 600 meters per minute (36 km/h, 22 mph). Between its opening and 1993 (the opening of Yokohama Landmark Tower), the observation deck elevators were the fastest in the world.

Office tenants

The office floors house the headquarters of Credit Saison, FamilyMart,

NTT Plala Plala (Japanese language, Japanese: ぷらら) is a major Japanese Internet service provider operated by NTT Plala Inc. It was established in 1995 and focuses on consumer internet services. Its major stockholder is NTT Communications Corp. The c ...

and Sammy Corporation, among other office tenants.

Image gallery

References

External links