Designs for The Wall, Tokyo. Plan, elevation and section.

Nigel Coates is a British architect trained in the University of Nottingham and Architectural Association in London. In 1985, Coates began receiving commissions from Japan and founded Branson Coates Architecture with Doug Branson. Branson Coates was commissioned to design The Wall (1990), a restaurant, bar, and retail complex in the Nishi-Azabu section of Tokyo. The brief was to design a building 'that looked as though it had been there forever, yet signified the 21st century'. Their response was to imagine the arrival of ancient Romans to Tokyo, and that the wall was a remaining fragment of that period. The solution was to 'give the impression of being endlessly adapted and reused, hence windows appeared to have been blocked and moved, and a spiral staircase stitched through the facade'.

The working spaces are on floors cantilevered from the rear of the wall and the basement and ground floors contain a club and 24-hour cafe. The top floor houses a restaurant. The brickwork was tied in every two courses into the framework as a safeguard against earthquakes.