Nearly a year ago I wrote twice about building names; here is another after a pause.
Searching the web I found a building in the news around the idol group AKB48, so that is today’s topic.
AKB48 is run by AKS Co., Ltd., a short ride from Takebashi on the Tokyo Metro To
zai and Hibiya lines, near Akihabara Station. It is the Don Quijote building, west of the redevelopment area Akihabara Crossfield along the tracks northwest of the JR station, which also houses the AKB48 theater (photo at right).
The office building “AKS Building” beside the JR tracks in Akihabara (Kanda-Neribei-cho, Chiyoda-ku) is the top photo. Because it is also Akihabara, the web (OK Wave and the like) has been asking, “Is this AKB’s head-office building?” (Fans are curious about small things.)
The name AKS Co., Ltd. is said to come from the initials of three founding members of the Akihabara 48 Project: A (Akimoto Yasushi, general producer), K (Kubota Yasushi, former AKS representative) and S (Shiba Kotaro, Office48 representative). I had thought “AKB48” itself came from AKIHABARA, but one theory says AK (Akimoto’s “aki”), KB (Kubota’s “kubo”) and 48 (Shiba’s “shiba”).
Be that as it may, AKS Building, as the photo shows, is a distinctive 2004 building: steel frame, one basement and eight stories, more than 10,000 square meters. Takenaka Corporation’s site, as designer and builder, says: “The exterior responds to different settings on each face—a planned road, the JR viaduct, a district plaza—and by varying them creates a rich expression.”
It is generally called a Nomura Real Estate property, but the company’s securities report lists it among “principal buildings the group leases for sublease”; the owner is Tokyo Seika Co., Ltd. (head office, Ota-ku), Japan’s largest produce wholesaler. Its site, under “history,” notes “October 2004: AKS Building completed in Akihabara.”
Why produce in Akihabara?? Tokyo Seika has since moved from Akihabara to Ota-ku. Northwest of JR Akihabara Station, the mixed office, commercial and industry-academia Akihabara Crossfield opened in 2006; the area was once the Kanda Produce Market—across the JR tracks from AKS Building. Plantings inside Crossfield bear a plate “Former site of Kanda Produce Market” (photo at right): “From 1928 (Showa 3) to 1989 (Heisei 1), for 61 years, Japan’s largest produce market stood here. The market has now moved to Tokai, Ota-ku,
and changed its name to Ota Market.” AKS Building was likely a redevelopment of the site after Tokyo Seika moved to Ota-ku.
Then what is the origin of the name AKS? That is still not quite clear.
The May 2006 issue of the monthly Kenchiku Gijutsu (photo at left) put AKS Building on the cover; the contents include a Takenaka report titled “AKS Building (Tokyo Seika Akihabara Building).” Perhaps “A” or “AK” is Akihabara and “S” is seika (produce)… or “saikaihatsu” (redevelopment).
Walking Akihabara while thinking this through, I found myself oddly tired.