The former Tokyo Central Post Office of 1931 was hollowed out in 2013 and reborn as a mall, its white modernist shell wrapped around a new tower and a triangular atrium designed by Kengo Kuma. KITTE, from the word for stamp, fills its floors with Japanese craft and design shops rather than global brands, and a university museum of natural history occupies the old postal halls.
Go for the roof, for the museum and for a meal with a train view, then shop on the way down. The atrium is a civilised place to meet in Marunouchi, and the building connects underground to the station, so it works even in the rain.
Tips
- The sixth-floor rooftop garden is free and looks straight down on Tokyo Station's domes and the bullet-train platforms
- Intermediatheque, the university museum on floors two and three, is free and full of skeletons and old scientific instruments
- The Christmas tree in the atrium each December is the tallest indoor tree in the city