The staircase of the Kokusai Building, completed nearly 60 years ago, has a cool retro design

It has been more than 130 years since Japan's first full-scale office district began to be built in Marunouchi, which in the Edo period was a samurai estate, and after the Meiji Restoration was used as a site for the Ministry of the Army. The streets, known as “small London" and “small New York," as well as buildings built in the 1920s and 1930s, which had become decrepit, have been rebuilt one after another. The Otemachi-Marunouchi-Yurakucho District Redevelopment Map shows that the reconstruction of most of the buildings has already been completed, transforming the area into a forest of high-rise buildings. Against this backdrop, the Kokusai Building, which I set foot in on this day, is one of the minority of office buildings that have not yet been redeveloped.

Upon entering the building, which was completed in 1966, one could sense the age of the building with its low ceilings. It is true that some 60 years have passed since its completion, so some parts of the building may be old-fashioned, and some of the facilities may be in disrepair. But not everything that is old is bad. Sometimes the old design looks cool. The staircase at the end of the floor is a good example. When you look at the staircase from above, it is not an elaborate design, and it is straight and simple, but it looks great.

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