Scala is a commercial- and office-complex by Atsushi Kitagawara near busy Roppongi-area. The architect was educated at Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music and opened his office in 1980. The facade of Scala is a virtuoso composition different volumes, forms, materials and colors. There is a cubic glas-steel-box which is surmounted by a concrete hopper-like volume. As architectural punchline Kitagawara introduces there a spring-board as a metaphor of fleetingness and the fast pace of life in Tokyo.

1986 – Cinema Rise – Atsushi Kitagawara

1986 – Cinema Rise – Atsushi Kitagawara

A cinema and retail complex, RISE is a surrealist work that is as much scuplture as architecture. Its architect Atsushi Kitagawara was educated at Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music and opened his office in 1980. Situated on a street awash with pedestrians, the exterior of four-story structure has a little bit of everything: Corten-steel and copper panels, translucent canopy, and cast-aluminium “drapery”. Inside, a mazelike system of circulation, ornamented with morde drapery, provides access to two movie theaters.