Tabloid Tokyo: Where art and fashion are the new headline acts

Tabloid is an eclectic art, office, gallery and studio space for the creative set that occupies the printing press warehouse abandoned by the nightly business gossip rag Yukan Fuji. It opened to the public on May 11 with live painting, DJ sets, installations, a live auction, and outside BBQ but it had already been introduced to insiders when Lady Gaga chose it as the venue for her 'secret' concert in Tokyo a month earlier. But interest in Tabloid is noted not for the blessing of Ms Gaga, but for the scale of the project, and its location, a squat of space next to Hinode on Tokyo Bay, otherwise a no-man’s-land for its target new-gen hipster circles that have stuck to the other side of town. 

Many of the rooms are photo studios available for rent like this one.

True to its name, massive headlines wrap the length of the building, in a show of striking typographical art that gets cheekier inside with quips of wisdom strewn throughout the building in contrasting microscopic font (I spotted “The left hand doesn`t know what the right had is doing” above the urinals in the men’s fourth floor pink restroom). The building’s industrial guts such as pipes and air shafts have been largely left intact, and cold narrow walkways lead through the maze of galleries and rooms with signposts painted in optical illusion graphics to lead the way.

A blindingly pink bathroom is in cheeky contrast to the stark cold industrial interior of the building.

The industrial guts have been kept largely intact, and the hallways lead through a maze of compartments and gallery rooms.

A café in wooden, old-time decor serves up drinks and comfort food at the entrance, and sleek bicycles with pink rims are available for tenants to borrow to take out for fresh air. There are shower rooms for those who go on exercise breaks, and a rooftop terrace that opens up to views of the Rainbow Bridge. The floor is laid with wooden slats and a handful of tree stumps for chairs, making it reminiscent of the renovated park The High Line in downtown Manhattan. “High Line was actually our inspiration for the design of this terrace,” says Yasuhiro Harada, an executive producer at ReBITA who is in charge of the project.

Dutch fashion and denim brand G-Star Raw moved their showroom from fashionable Minami-Aoyama to Tabloid in March, the first to jump on the bandwagon. “I remember when this was the area to be at, when discotheques like Gold were here. The whole town came out,” says Tatsuo Yata, the G-Star Raw Japan country manager, referring to the early 1990s when warehouse clubs brought the whole city out to the bay area in droves. He hinted at throwing some parties at Tabloid for the brand in the future.

Artist groups painted the walls of gallery and office spaces on opening night, like these pieces by Mashcomix.

Will the opening of Tabloid mark the birth of a new hot area like the Meatpacking District in New York or South Bank in London? If the art is good, the parties happenin’, and night view is clear, then they will surely come.

2-6-24 Kaigan, Minato-ku, tabloid-tcd.com