Storefront of the Starbucks at Dazaifutenmangu Omotesando on the historic street leading to the temple site.
Located on the approach to one of Japan’s most popular shrines, the Starbucks store is scaled to fit into the fabric of the historic district.
Seating and store display areas at the front of the Starbucks store look out onto the neighboring shops.
Seating area, wrapped in woven wood, looking back toward rear garden.
Inside, the café is dominated by a decidedly modern sculptural diagonal latticework of 2,000 cedar sticks.
While the effect is delicate, there is an unexpectedly large amount of wood used in the space: Laid end-to-end, the total length of cedar sticks used in the space is over 2.7 miles.
The store’s design does have precedence: The woven-wood technique—which Kengo Kuma’s firm has explored, more orthogonally, with its Chidori modular furniture and at the Prostho Museum Research center in Kasugai-shi, Aichi, Japan—is based on a traditional Japanese toy.
Interior elevation of the northern wall.
Interior elevations
