Should the Sony Building be rebuilt or not? We began the project by considering every possibility on equal footing—selling the building, renovating it, or rebuilding it—and by confronting the fundamental question, "What is Sony?" Nearly 12 years passed from that point to the grand opening of Ginza Sony Park. This book documents that entire journey.
It looks back on the history of the Sony Building and the evolution of Ginza as a city, carefully examining the vision of Sony's founders and the building's designer, and what they hoped to pass on to future generations. Then, instead of immediately constructing a new building, we opened the partially demolished building to the public. We also went a step further by carrying out a wide range of activities in this open-to-the-public space, using the insights gained through that process of trial and error as the foundation for designing a new kind of space. These were efforts that would never be part of a conventional rebuilding process.
We chose this unorthodox—and at first glance, roundabout—approach because we wanted the building to embody the Sony Spirit of being unique, of doing what others do not. At the same time, we sought to carry forward the vision of Sony building's founder Akio Morita and the building's designer Yoshinobu Ashihara, of building with an "open-to-the-public" spirit. Our aim was to evolve that vision into a new kind of space suited to the present day.
