Gundam Building, Shibuya

Mike Grist Architecture 1 Comment

The Gundam building in Shibuya rests on its axled haunches like the ultimate guard-dog, anxiously awaiting the day it will be called into service to leap-frog into battle to protect its city, tackling Mothra or some other evil invading alien with its fire-eyes and laser tail.

It also keeps a close eye on those ‘satellites’ launched out of North Korea, ready to leap up and catch them in its big red mouth as if they were frisbees.

Mobile suit, baby!

Thanks to one Adrian Tan for the tip on this place- close enough to Shibuya station that I could kick myself for not already knowing about it, but down a useless enough (to me) back-street that there’s little chance I would ever have stumbled upon it.

And what’s it for? I think it’s a technical college for aspiring architects- so the form is quite fitting and relevant in a country where they train architects to build things that are mad. This can be their touchstone.

Enter.
.

Big red missile-catching mouth.
.

From the building across the street, 3rd floor balcony.
.

Axled haunches.
.

Lazer tail!
.

Banister.
.

Ever poised.

FACTFILE

Location – Shibuya.

Entry – Open, inside a small model of the building.

Facts – Hmm…

Highlights – Going up to nearby building to get shot clear of power lines.

TOKYO

You can see all MJG’s Tokyo content here:

[album id=5 template=compact]

Comments 1

  1. Hi, thank you very much for your scout locations 🙂 i live in shibuya untill january next year, but i cannot find this building. Is it possible for you to give the google earth mark of the buildings location?

    Thanx in advance, oh and we should meet for a some shootings, i really love the locations that you find, and i’ve already stumpled across new sky biru, went to roof top and everything. would like to go to more of locations like that in tokyo.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *