Kioi Seido, Tokyo.

Location

Kioi Seido is located in the Kioicho district of central Tokyo, near Akasaka and the Hotel New Otani complex.

Architect

Hiroshi Naito

Completed

2021

Architectural Style

Minimalist contemporary Japanese architecture using exposed concrete, timber and glass.

Photography Tips

The building works particularly well for architectural photography because of its strong geometric forms and the way natural light enters the interior spaces. Mid-morning or late afternoon light often produces the most dramatic shadows.

Kioi Seido is a cultural venue owned by the RINRI Institute of Ethics, created as an open-ended place for learning, reflection, and public programs rather than a single fixed use.  Designed by acclaimed Japanese architect Hiroshi Naito and completed/opened in 2021. The brief was to design a a building with no purpose - its purpose would become clear once complete. Wrapped in a light glass skin over solid concrete and warm timber, it balances weight and transparency, turning daylight, shadow, and quiet geometry into the main experience. 

From Monocle :

“For sheer inspiration, few architectural projects can compare with Kioi Seido, an enigmatic building in the centre of the city with no purpose at all. Designed by architect Hiroshi Naito for the Rinri Institute of Ethics, it was a dream commission. “They asked me to design the building at my discretion and said that they would figure out the functionality later,” says Naito. The result is a mysterious, soaring pantheon for the 21st century, lined with wood and wrapped in concrete and glass. It isn’t generally open to the public but when it has been, crowds have lined up to glimpse what’s inside. Completed in 2021, the building’s use has yet to be decided. Perhaps it never will. Here, utilitarianism has been thrown out the window. “As an architect,” says Naito, “I have never been more proud.”

I first encountered this building on trip to Tokyo in 2024, however it was not open for visitors. In 2025 I learnt that it would be opened briefly for an exhibition of the Natio’s sketches drawings and other work. I booked a quick week’s trip, and as it only opened on certain days, I had only one day to capture it. I was expecting it to be reasonably quiet thinking that as it wasn’t really in a tourist area. I arrived at opening to see SO MANY people lined up to enter and my dreams of capturing it in a pristine, quiet state quickly evaporated. Not to be deterred, I quickly adjusted my expectations and captured it as best I could with the conditions that I had, making use of the visitors to tell the story of the space. I spent a few hours in the morning exploring the space, making lots of images.

I then came back a few hours before closing, knowing the scenes and aspects that I wanted to capture. In the afternoon the morning’s cloud cover had disappeared and the skylights created the most gorgeous pools of light and shadow that I could use to create these beautiful high contrast images.

At closing time, the crowds had almost disappeared, and I was able to capture a few quiet images of the space.

Final image from 2024.