An echo in Tokyo

Takenobu Igarashi's 1986 logo Tokyo's Suntory Hall

To celebrate its sixtieth year of whisky making and twentieth year of beer brewing, Japanese beverage company Suntory opened Suntory Hall in the Autumn of 1986.

The venue would be Tokyo’s first ever dedicated concert hall, and was a modern acoustic marvel, created with the goal of pursuing ‘the world’s most beautiful sound’. This had been the realisation of a dream held by Keizo Saji, the president of Suntory Ltd.

Construction began in the late 1970s and the hall opened in October 1986. To coincide with the opening, Takenobu Igarashi and his team at Igarashi Studio were commissioned to develop a logo. Taking inspiration from the past and infusing this with a conceptual dimension, Igarshi devised a striking and unusual mark that would signal a new era for the Tokyo music scene.

Upgrade your membership here to read about the concept behind the Suntory Hall logo, and how this was developed into a sculpture and placed at the entrance of the concert hall.