Imperial Theatre Cinerama

50sSNIPES on May 2, 2025 at 5:10 pm

The actual opening date is March 1, 1911, but its first performances didn’t start until three days later on March 4, 1911.

The Imperial Theatre was first founded by a whole team of 10 Japanese residents, which were Hirobumi Ito, Taro Masuda, Keinosuke Nishino, Eiichi Shibusawa, Heigoro Shoda, Sutejiro Fukuzawa, Momosuke Fukuzawa, Onsuke Hibi, Tsunenori Tanaka, and Takemasa Tezuka. It was first built as a Renaissance-style theater designed by Tamsuke Yokogawa.

Shochiku took over the Imperial in 1930 and became the SY chain’s flagship movie theater. However, it wasn’t until 1939 when Toho merged with the theater’s management company, and Toho took over and restored the theater into its original form as a theatrical entertainment venue in 1940. The basement dining hall downstairs opened during World War II (possibly around January 1944) as a rice porridge restaurant.

On January 5, 1955, the Imperial Theatre became the first ever movie theater in Japan featuring Cinerama installations. Tokyo had two of them in total, with the other being the Theatre Tokyo. Cinerama in the Imperial lasted until December 16, 1962, leaving the Theatre Tokyo the only Cinerama theater operating. It reopened as a 70mm house six days later on December 22, 1962 and continued to screen first-run films with 70mm projection until its final closure as a movie theater on January 31, 1964 after its final showing of “Lawrence Of Arabia”. It last had 1,826 seats, with 1,138 seats on the first floor and 688 seats on the balcony.

The original Imperial Theatre was demolished and a newer Imperial Theatre, a live theater, was built on the site. The building, an integrated complex with the Kokusai Building, was designed by Yoshiro Taniguchi. It was completed on September 29, 1966, and reopened that October. Part of the building has been used as the headquarters of the oil giant Idemitsu Kosan since its completion, and the top floor is now the Idemitsu Museum of Arts Tokyo, which displays the antique art collection of Idemitsu Sazo (Idemitsu Kosan moved to Otemachi in 2021). The revolving stage has four large and small elevations inside, is 16.4 meters in diameter and 22 meters high, and runs from the first floor above ground to the 6th floor underground.

The newer Imperial featured a mix of stage shows and special events, including the Japan Record Awards presentations from 1969 to 1984 and the year-end Jumbo Lottery held on some New Year’s Eves, once in 1977, and again from 1997 until 1999, and again from 2001 until 2005. Those shows were previously held at the Nippon Theater, the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater, the Shinjuku Koma Theater, the Tokyo Welfare Pension Hall, the Melpark Tokyo, and finally the Akasaka ACT Theater. Ever since 2017, it was always held at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall.

On September 27, 2022, Toho announced that they’ll work with Idemitsu Arts Center and Mitsubishi Estate to rebuild the whole theater. After closure on February 28, 2025, Toho immediately signed a lease agreement with Meijiza for multi-year, multi-month performances from March 2025. This updated theater is scheduled to be completed in 2030. The building itself will have 29 floors above ground and 4 below, with the theater located on the lower floors, from the 4th floor above ground to the 2nd floor below. The design itself was done by architect and Hosei University professor Tetsuo Kobori, and based on the concept of “THE VEIL,” it aims to create a comfortable space that embodies “Japanese-ness that looks to the future” by taking advantage of the natural environment around Hibiya, such as by incorporating natural light. The difference from the second-generation theater is that the theater layout will be rotated 90 degrees from the previous one, with the audience seats located directly in front of the entrance, and a flow plan will be made to reduce congestion at the start and end of performances. The number of seats will be almost the same as before, 1,900 seats, but with more space. The stage space will be the same size as before, but a technical gallery will be provided above the stage wings, and world-class cutting-edge stage technology will be introduced. Other plans include expanding the lobby and foyer space, improving the cafe and bar, expanding utility facilities such as restrooms, adding a cafe that the public can use, making the facility barrier-free, and building a new underground theater lobby directly connected to the subway concourse.

The entire building, excluding the theater, will be designed in accordance with the Otemachi, Marunouchi, and Yurakucho District Urban Development Guidelines 2023, preserving the historic 31m (100 shaku) eaves line, and the upper floors, which will house high-grade offices, will be set back to ensure continuity with the existing eaves line of the lower floors, and a terrace open to the public overlooking the Imperial Palace will be built on the roof of the lower floors. The Idemitsu Museum of Arts will be redeveloped in the upper part of the lower floors to enhance its function as a museum, and a commercial zone will be created, forming an underground station town space linked to the subway Yurakucho Station and Hibiya Station, and an east-west underground passage connecting to JR Yurakucho Station will also be built.