Hello r/japan! I’m currently deep in an OSINT investigation trying to track down a unique, lost piece of 1980s Tokyo architecture, and I hit a wall.
The building was a commercial photo/film studio called "Studio House Ginga" (スタジオハウス銀河). It featured an incredible avant-garde glass greenhouse/slanted roof design. It stood at Minato-ku, Toranomon 3-10-3, but was demolished around 1991-1992 to make way for the Toranomon MT Building.
Because it vanished before the widespread internet, my only proof of its existence comes from the 1984 Japanese movie "The Audition" (ザ・オーディション), where it was used as a filming location and credited in the end roll.
How you can help: To find the architect, I need to know who owned the land. The absolute best way to find this is via the Zenrin residential maps (ゼンリン住宅地図) from 1984-1985 for that specific address.
If anyone happens to be visiting the National Diet Library or the Tokyo Metropolitan Library and could snap a quick photo of that block on the map, it would blow this investigation wide open! Alternatively, if any architecture nerds recognize the name or the description, please let me know.
I’ve compiled a Google Drive folder with color-corrected screenshots of the building from the movie so you can see this lost piece of Tokyo history:https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1J1NHFtV8w6ilqDc8-UIA7xxQIXWT54qS?usp=sharing
Any leads or advice on where else to look are highly appreciated!
by Level_Arugula_5359