Japan Center (San Francisco)
- Architect
- Minoru Yamasaki
- Year
- 1968
- City
- San Francisco, CA
The Japan Center opened in March 1968 as the Japanese Cultural and Trade Center, the centerpiece of a redevelopment project that reshaped Japantown. Architect Minoru Yamasaki designed the complex, built across three connected mall buildings, as the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, under director M. Justin Herman, cleared a 108-acre swath of the Western Addition beginning in the late 1950s, displacing 8,000 residents under eminent domain.
the building
Three connected malls. The complex is built from three separate mall buildings, the Kinokuniya Mall, Kintetsu Mall (Japan Center West), and Miyako Mall (Japan Center East), linked together and anchored today by Books Kinokuniya and the Sundance Kabuki Cinema.
the architect
Minoru Yamasaki designed the Japan Center in 1968, years before he became known worldwide for the World Trade Center towers in New York.
significance
The Japan Center was the first major project completed under Western Addition Project Area A-1, an SFRA redevelopment effort that displaced 8,000 residents from a 108-acre area beginning in the late 1950s, making it a landmark of both Japantown's rebuilding and the era's urban renewal controversies.
nearby
- Bush Street Temple
- Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption
- Congregation Sherith Israel
- Tobin House
- Theodore F. Payne House
- Atherton House