Japan Trip Tokyo Shibuya 109 dougenzaka Town center Building Fashion Japanese

Shibuya 109 (department store)
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History and description
The building, located just across the street from Shibuya Station, opened in April 1979. The architect was Minoru Takeyama. Tokyu, the building's operator, designed the building as a "Fashion Community" containing small retail stores targeting the early-30s female consumer. Tokyu intended the store to compete with Seibu Department Stores, which was making inroads into the Shibuya area.

The name of the building, 109, is a form of word play (goroawase, specifically numerical substitution) and is taken from the Japanese characters tō (meaning 10) and kyū (9) as in Tōkyū. The interior of the building is designed to move shoppers in a loop on each floor from the elevators past various shops. A movie theater was originally planned for the top floor, but the fire department would not grant approval due to emergency-evacuation routes not meeting appropriate standards. Although originally targeted at women in their 30s, the building later became more known as a mecca for young women from the gyaru subculture.

Stores
Shibuya 109 (Shibuya, Tokyo) - April 1979
109Men's (Shibuya, Tokyo) - April 1979
Kohrinbo 109 (Kanazawa, Ishikawa) - September 1985
109 Machida (Machida, Tokyo) - July 2002
Shizuoka 109 (Shizuoka, Shizuoka) - October 2007

Created in March 2006 as Shibuya 109 Dreams, later recreated into the current 109.

Minatomirai 109 (Yokohama) - April 2010
Shibuya 109 Abeno (Osaka) - April 2011