TOKYO — There are many ways to demolish a building, and some of them are spectacular: blowing it up from the inside so it collapses on itself, or smashing it to bits with a two-ton wrecking ball.

But here in Tokyo, a cheek-by-jowl city with many outdated high-rises and tough recycling and environmental restrictions, Japanese companies are perfecting what might be called stealth demolition. Some tall buildings are dismantled from the top down, the work hidden by a moving scaffold, others from the bottom up, the entire structure being slowly jacked down.

At times the techniques seem to defy gravity, or at least common sense, for although the buildings appear intact, they slowly shrink. The methods, which make for a cleaner and quieter work site, may eventually find favor in New York and other cities as aging skyscrapers become obsolete and the best solution is to take them down and rebuild.

The latest Tokyo high-rise to get the stealth treatment is the Akasaka Prince Hotel, a 40-story tower with a distinctive saw-toothed facade overlooking one of the city’s bustling commercial districts. Since last fall, its steel and concrete innards have been torn apart, floor by floor, starting near the top, by hydraulic shears and other heavy equipment. The building has been shrinking by about two floors every 10 days; this month it will be gone, to be replaced by two new towers.