Ginza Kaiwai/ Ginza Haccho In 1954 By Yoshikazu Suzuki & Kimura Shohachi

‘Ginza Kaiwai/ Ginza Haccho’ was published in 1954 and it was a historical publication about the history of Tokyo’s Ginza district. This book consists of two separate booklets housed in a cardboard box. One is a textbook with pictures, another one, which is of particular interest, is a long elevational panorama of Ginza in an accordion fold; one side of the street is across the top of the page and the other printed upside-down along the bottom, with captions and descriptive text in between.

This book is conceived and realized exactly like Ed Ruscha’s celebrated artist’s book ‘Every Building on the Sunset Strip’ which is produced twelve years later in 1967. People are wondering and raising the question of whether Ruscha has seen and been influenced by this vernacular publication.

Both of the books was presented in the same style; shown a street in a panorama view, which is an intriguing and non-traditional way to represent a street. I really like the way they used the accordion fold to produce their book. In my opinion, the book looked stunning when present in flat-wise. Also, the accordion fold is the best way to show the coherence of a street in a book instead of the traditional way. No matter view it flat-wise or in vertical, it will show a different perspective to the audience.

In addition, there is one big different between Ed Ruscha’s book and Yoshikazu Suzuki & Kimura Shohachi’s book. ‘Ginza Kaiwai/ Ginza Haccho’ was made in fine Japanee book-making with rice paper; compare with ‘Every Building on the Sunset Strip’ that was printed on white paper; folded and glued. From the production and the publication of a book, people can see that how Japanese care about the detail, also the insistence on design and aesthetics.

Whether or no, Yoshikazu Suzuki & Kimura Shohachi and Ed Ruscha pushed the boundary of publishing in a new way in both Eastern and Western art.