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PASSERS-BY IN TOKYO’S busy Akasaka district have started to notice something odd about a 40-floor hotel: it has shrunk to about half its original height.
Slowly but surely, and with none of the explosions or dust normally associated with the demolition of skyscrapers, the hotel is being torn down.
“In this demolition scheme, the building shrinks and disappears without you noticing,” said Hideki Ichihara, manager of Taisei Corporation, the construction firm running the project.
The Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka was built in the 1980s, a gleaming 140-metre symbol of a decade of extravagance when people almost had money to burn and Japan’s red-hot economy powered the world.
Now it is shrinking: losing two floors, or 6.4 metres, every 10 days, said Ichihara.
The Japanese-developed Taisei Ecological Reproduction System (TECOREP) is a new process designed to contain the noise and dirt of a demolition, and recycle the energy pent up in a tall building.
Engineers reinforced the top floor with steel beams and then effectively lopped it off, keeping it in place to be used as an adjustable lid that can be lowered down the building on an external support frame.
(YouTube: thejapantimes)
Workers at the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka have brought in 15 hydraulic jacks on which this “lid” now sits as they remove one floor at a time, carefully breaking apart the once-luxurious guest rooms.
The materials are separated and, where possible, recycled.
“By keeping this cap on top of the building, we can contain the noise and the dust significantly,” Ichihara said. “Dust pollution is cut by more than 90 per cent, keeping the environmental impact very small.”
The waste is lowered through a central well on a pulley system that generates the electricity used to power lighting and ventilation systems, said Ichihara, further reducing the environmental impact of the demolition.
The 30-year-old hotel – known locally as “Aka-Puri”, a contraction of the Japanese pronunciation of “Akasaka Prince” – was once a symbol of Tokyo’s glitzy lifestyle.
At its height it was the epitome of luxury, with well-heeled guests willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a night in one of its luxury suites, or for its special Christmas Eve packages for lovers.
However, the glitter rubbed off Japan’s economy with the bursting of the stock and real estate bubbles at the start of the 1990s. Luxury hotels gradually fell out of favour and some struggled to keep their guest books full.
A spokesman for the hotel owner said the company appreciates the quieter and cleaner demolition, which is in keeping with the erstwhile image of the hotel as a landmark.
“The Aka-Puri was loved by so many people, and so many people had their weddings there,” said Jugo Yasutake, of Seibu Properties, which plans to build a new hotel and business complex on the spot.
“It is good to see the building disappear in such a clean manner.”
The demolition is expected to finish in June.
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Who’s mammy and daddy left who the most. Let the battles begin!
@Dan The Man: Yeah,keep telling yourself that.typical Irish attitude towards success and hard work.We must be the worst begrudging nation on earth.
@Dan The Man: Just because you didn’t make it very far in life, doesn’t mean others can’t either. You just assume that anyone with something decent was just given to them. Is that your coping mechanism because you can’t admit there is people who work harder than you and make better decisions?
@John Paul: well that’s one way to look at it, but you can see how such shows might really grate on those that haven’t been able to afford a house. I am in fact lucky enough to have purchased a house I can afford but I do wonder when we might see a tent or a temporary type of house on the show. Doesn’t fit the narrative though.
This is tat, pure and simple, but it’s par for the course with RTE!
This abomination along with the other shitshow cheap Irish homes have to be the worst ever attempt by RTE at entertainment.
@Sea Spirit: Why don’t they give updates or tell you what home the people featured, make a bid on. What’s the point of it all!
@Sea Spirit: A stop Dathai should be on this show aswell for god sake he’s brilliant oh Frank
Hugh Wallace makes me nauseas ‘Hooooooome of the year’… while the majority of us hard working people can’t even afford the circular red pillow to put in our ‘favourite place’. Yup rub it in please Man just a little bit more.
@J B: No fair enough JB and thank you for that x You must be so proud of your children that’s amazing x You’re right in fairness, I need to get over my resentments it’s just hard because genuinely worked so hard and lost everything. There I go again with the self pity!! Sorry JB and thanks again for your reply x
@Donna Fallon: As all the evidence shows, Irish people have never been better off financially. Look at car sales, holidays etc. There are always people who get left behind or endure bad circumstances etc but they are definitely not the majority
@Brian M: Yup there certainly are people who get left behind I agree but our obsession with property porn in this Country is quite unsettling. I personally find it distasteful. Just an opinion.
Love the show and the judges. It is amazing what people can do on very little as in the converted shop in Tipperary. Gorgeous home full of personality.
@Suzanne Phelan: I prefer those to the ones that obviously just had more money than taste thrown into them, everything to the max size, but minimal and sterile at the same time.
Home of the year …
I blame Duncan Stewart and his show “our house” with rté which started in the mid 90s for the start of the property boom. Just looat the graph 1996 / 2008 \ 2014 / 2025
@P. V. Aglue: Ah Drunken Duncan. There’s a name I haven’t seen in a while
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