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Yamaha Corporation (Yamaha) has decided to replace the current Yamaha Ginza Building (located at 7-9-14, Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo), which currently serves as both a retail space for a sales subsidiary and as a concert hall. The new building will have 12 aboveground and three subterranean floors, for a greatly expanded floor area encompassing 7,000 square meters. Yamaha intends the building to continue to function as an enhanced retail space and a concert hall, in addition to which will be new live studios, event spaces, and other such facilities. The new building will also bring together music schools for adults, artist services facilities, and other peripheral amenities that are now located in other facilities in the area. Plans call for the new building to open in March 2009 as a symbolic focal point in Ginza for experiencing and understanding Yamaha's many advances and developments in sound and music. The building will provide a focal point for business activities and for disseminating information on the Yamaha Group and will serve as an active base for making lifestyle proposals in the fields of sound and music.
The original Yamaha Ginza Building was completed in December 1951 as the Tokyo branch office of Nippon Gakki Co., Ltd. (currently Yamaha), and represented a cutting-edge architectural design for its time. It was lauded for the brightness of its retail space, graced by a rich display of glass and free of central pillars as well as the sound fidelity of the concert hall. Over the years, the building has undergone several major remodelings. Currently, the Ginza store of Yamaha Music Tokyo Co., Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha, is used as the retail premises and Yamaha Hall Co., Ltd., operates the concert hall. The retail space and the hall are used by music enthusiasts and many other patrons.
Despite its history, the building has aged in the more than 50 years since it was first opened. Ever since building codes were loosened in the Ginza area in 1998, Yamaha has been considering better ways of using the building, including the ideal management configuration for the retail operations and how to best leverage the building to further elevate the Company's brand image.
Based on these considerations, the Company decided to construct the New Yamaha Ginza Building based on a concept that the property should act as the flagship center for conveying and communicating information on Yamaha's many advances and initiatives in sound and music. As its core, the building will have retail space for musical instruments and a full-scale hall for classical music concerts, and it will organically combine these with music schools for adults, a live music studio, an event space, and other amenities to support experts' and artists' services.
The basic concept of the new Ginza Building will be to offer a venue for discovering instruments and other products, experiencing music lessons, and accessing information to create a musical lifestyle. Yamaha intends this new building to be a gathering place for communicating and sharing the excitement that music conveys, not only for the world’s leading artists but also for a broad range of music lovers from all walks of life. The new facility is also envisioned as a focal point for the market for adults in sound and music, which promises to experience growth in the years ahead.
The following is a basic overview of what the construction of the new Ginza Building will entail.
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