Between Land and Sea – Place for Cultural Exchange on the Tokyo Waterfront

Authors’ Comment

“Between Land and Sea” proposes the reactivation of the Tsukiji waterfront in Tokyo, on the site of the former fish market, which was almost entirely relocated to Toyosu. This transformation created a discontinuity in a place historically defined not only by its commercial function, but by exchange, movement, collective activity and the direct relationship between city and water. The project does not reconstruct the market or preserve its former image, but instead continues the logic that shaped its identity, transforming the memory of material exchange into cultural exchange.
The ensemble is conceived as an in-between space between city and port, land and sea, memory and transformation. A sequence of gardens, cultural pavilions and public spaces connects the urban fabric to a vertical center dedicated to creative practice, exhibition, performance, research and exchange. The pavilions progressively introduce experiences related to food, arts and crafts, artistic practice and music, preparing the transition towards the collective programs of the tower. Its architecture thus becomes a cultural process in which learning, practice, contemplation, performance and interaction form a continuous experience.
The landscape continues the character of the neighboring historic Hama-rikyū Gardens towards the waterfront, creating a sequence of intermediate spaces between architecture and nature. The public promenade, waterfront plaza, pier and ferry station connect Tsukiji to the city’s mobility and public infrastructure. Water is therefore not treated only as the edge of the site, but becomes part of its infrastructure, public space and urban experience.
Repetition, rhythm and flow, adapted from Japanese spatial culture, become architectural and organizational tools for the entire ensemble. Repetition supports practice and learning while allowing memory to be transmitted through recurring spatial experiences. Rhythm is created through intervals, pauses and thresholds, as well as the alternation between pavilions, gardens, open and enclosed spaces. Flow connects these conditions through movement and transition, allowing programs and spaces to adapt and transform over time. Together, these principles also shape the contemporary reinterpretation of the pagoda within the cultural tower, through vertical layering, ascent and programmatic organization, without reproducing traditional architectural forms.
The rigid-box structural system allows large spans and flexible spatial and functional organization, supporting different cultural programs and configurations over time. Within the tower, this flexibility is enhanced by the movable atrium, which changes the relationships between levels and allows the interior space to adapt according to use. Transparency, programmatic organization and architectural language blur the boundaries between interior and exterior and mediate between architecture, landscape and water.
The project therefore understands cultural continuity not as the preservation of a fixed form, but as a living and adaptable practice. Tsukiji does not become a museum of its own history, but a place where the memory of exchange continues through new forms of creation, interaction and public life, where architecture acts as a mediator between memory and transformation, city and nature, land and sea.