Once a Trendsetter, Harajuku Is Suffering a Fading Sense of Identity

Concerns for the Future

As part of redevelopment the Co-op Olympia Annex will also be pulled down, most of its tenants having already moved out. Teresa Teng fans from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have flocked to the site to take photographs before it is demolished. Tōkyū Fudōsan Holdings, Japan’s fourth largest land developer, plans to build a 22,000-square-meter shopping center on the site that is scheduled to start business in 2020. The company already runs Tōkyū Plaza Omotesandō Harajuku, which opened in 2012 on the site of Central Apartments, and built a commercial complex on Meiji-dōri.

Looking across the crossroads at the Co-op Olympia Annex. (Courtesy Nakamura Yukino)

The 1964 Olympics were a catalyst for change in Harajuku, and Tokyo’s second games 56 years on have also sparked transformation. However, having spent my youth in Harajuku, I am concerned about where it is heading.

I would love the tourists who visit to see the photographs from the 70’s Harajuku collection. With those pictures of Harajuku’s former sparkling individuality in mind, I hope they would stroll around today’s commercial areas with a sense of the district’s past.