Tokyo Guide: Daikanyama
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Tokyo Area Guide: Daikanyama
 Daikanyama, in Tokyo's Shibuya ward, is a short train ride (one local stop) from Shibuya
Station on the Tokyu Toyoko Line and is a quiet counterpoint to
what is often the Shibuya station area’s noise and brash consumerism.
High-priced boutiques, some of the best cafe culture in Japan, and
Fumihiko Maki’s Hillside Terrace make the Daikanyama
area one of Tokyo’s hippest neighborhoods, featuring a fascinating mixture of the cute, the cutting edge and the retrospective.
Daikanyama
Daikanyama proper is the sloping strip of land that
runs from Daikanyama station north to the twin Yamanote and Saikyo lines,
this northern limit being marked by the giant chimney of the incineration
plant that lies just beyond the railway tracks.
Between the station and the Yamanote/Saikyo tracks are numerous tiny
cafés, crepe shops, art spaces, skateboarder stores, clothing stores,
hairdressers, shoe shops, boutiques, and accessory stores that give Daikanyama its
often cutsie, but always mod, and often retro, reputation.
Daikanyama Address
The biggest complex in Daikanyama proper is called Daikanyama
Address, stretching the width of the strip, from Hachiman-dori
Avenue to the west to the road running parallel to the Tokyu
Toyoko line, serving Daikanyama station, to the east.
Daikanyama Address is distinguished by a large green flower sculpture
on Hachiman-dori Avenue, but any originality about the place stops there.
It is big, but as uninspired as its name, and the visitor is much better
off exploring the pedestrian-only east-west-running slopes immediately
to the north, and Hillside Terrace a little south-west.
For an all-in-one taste of Daikanyama quirk in all its glory, check
out Détente, a little shop three streets north
of Daikanyama Address, just across from the dirty pink, pop-up colonial
folly known as Castle Mansion Daikanyama, or the Hillside Terrace complex
on Kyu-Yamate-dori Avenue, just west of Daikanyama Station.
Sarugakucho and Aobadai 1-chome
The area just west of Daikanyama Station and Hachiman-dori Avenue
is not Daikanyama proper, but Sarugakucho, which goes down as far as
Kyu-Yamate-dori Avenue. Across the Avenue, just south,
is Aobadai 1-chome. Setting off down Kyu-Yamate-dori Avenue from Koban-mae
intersection takes you into a world of elegance and good taste –
an adult vibe quite different from what can be the adolescent preciousness
of Daikanyama proper.
Hillside Terrace
On the corner of Hachiman-dori and Kyu-Yamate-dori Avenues, on the Koban-mae
intersection, is where the Hillside Terrace complex begins.
Hillside Terrace is an urban project by architect Fumihiko Maki, who
also has the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium in Sendagaya and the striking
Spiral Building near Omotesando on his resume. It was built in seven
stages between 1967 and 1992. Two of them, Hillside West, are a few
hundred meters further west down Kyu-Yamate-dori Avenue.
Hillside Terrace straddles both sides of Kyu-Yamate-dori Avenue, beginning
at Koban-mae intersection on the southern, Aobadai 1-chome, side, with
two buildings three blocks down on the northern, Sarugakucho, side.
They feature much the same kind of shops as in Daikanyama proper: restaurants,
cafes, boutiques, hairdressers, art spaces – plus a design library
– with a decent English collection (membership required) –
but on a larger, cleaner, and more sophisticated scale.
Access to Daikanyama
Dakanyama Station is on the Tokyu Toyoko line from Shibuya (and bound
for Yokohama). The area can also be accessed from Ebisu Station on the
JR
Yamanote Line.
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