PROTO-ARCHITECTURE

Tokyo Station

“Tokyo Station (東京駅, Tōkyō-eki?) is a train station located in the Marunouchi business district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan, near the Imperial Palace grounds and the Ginza commercial district.

It is the main intercity rail terminal in Tokyo, the busiest station in Japan in terms of number of trains per day (over 3,000), and the eighth-busiest in Japan in terms of passenger throughput.[citation needed] It is the starting point and terminus for most of Japan’s Shinkansen (high-speed rail lines), and is served by many local and regional commuter lines of Japan Railways, as well as the Tokyo Metro network.1

Shibuya Station

Shibuya Station (渋谷駅, Shibuya-eki?) is a train station located in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. With 2.4 million passengers on an average weekday in 2004, it is the fourth-busiest commuter rail station in Japan (after Shinjuku , Ikebukuro, and Ōsaka / Umeda) handling a large amount of commuter traffic between the center city and suburbs to the south and west.2”

These stations are two of the eight main rail stations that make up the “ring” of rail stations encicling Tokyo (a map of which you can view here).  The thrust of my research is to understand the nature of such rail stations and see if and lessons can be applied to rail and TOD development in the United States.  Rail stations in Japan are much more of a community focus than in the states, with shopping, dining and other functions that cater both to the traveler and the local resident.  There are huge shopping malls, grocery stores, gift shops, cafe’s, theaters, etc. etc. all linked to the rail station developments.  I won’t go into too much detail here as this is something I’m going to continue my analysis of, but here are some relevant photos.