Shibuya Scramble Square Opens With an Open-Air Deck 230 Metres Up

Shibuya Scramble Square opened on 1 November 2019. It is a tower of 47 floors and about 230 metres, the tallest in the district, built directly over Shibuya Station in Tokyo. Its roof is an observation deck called Shibuya Sky, which within months had become one of the most visited viewpoints in the city.

The tower

The building is the centrepiece of the reconstruction of Shibuya Station, a project that has been under way since the 2010s and will continue into the 2030s. The station had grown into a maze. The redevelopment is rebuilding its platforms and passages and placing new towers above and around it.

Scramble Square is owned jointly by the Tokyu Corporation, JR East and Tokyo Metro. Three firms shared the design: Nikken Sekkei, Kengo Kuma and Associates, and SANAA. The lower floors are shops and restaurants, the middle floors offices, and floor 15 a space for events and start-up companies. Two further, lower wings are to follow.

Shibuya Sky

The observation area is at the top of the tower. The roof is an open deck with glass walls at its edge and nothing overhead, described by its operator as the largest rooftop observatory in Japan. Most of Tokyo’s high viewpoints are behind windows, and this is the feature that sets Shibuya Sky apart. An indoor gallery on the floor below has a café and bar and seats facing the windows.

The view takes in the towers of Shinjuku to the north, the green rectangle of Yoyogi Park and the Meiji shrine, Tokyo Tower and the Skytree to the east and, in clear weather, Mount Fuji to the west. Directly below is the Shibuya crossing, one of the busiest pedestrian crossings in the world.

For travellers

Tickets are sold for a fixed time and should be bought online in advance. The hour before sunset sells out weeks ahead, and is the time to choose, since it gives the view by day, at dusk and by night. Bags, hats and loose items must be left in lockers before going on to the roof, and the deck is closed in strong wind and rain.

The building is a short walk from Trunk(Hotel) Yoyogi Park, and it is one stop of the Shibuya story told in our piece on the public toilets designed by leading architects. For the other new districts of the city, see our accounts of Azabudai Hills and of Ginza Six.