First back to Japan
A Tokyo architecture tour
It’s comforting to know how easily I fall back into being a backpacker. But I suppose that’s to be expected since I’m now into my sixth month of travel without a home address since graduating. Maybe this is something I’ve reiterated one too many times — but hey, I didn’t think it would be this natural.
Returning to Tokyo I wasn’t sure how many times I’ve visited. The last time I was here was just over three years ago before I did my Masters of Architecture. I think this is my fourth or fifth visit which means that I’m seeing a lot of places I’ve been before but I’m also seeing them through a different lens, one of a solo traveller and one of an architectural investigator.
I organized this trip largely around seeing as much contemporary architecture as possible. I planned my two months in Japan as a trip to visit about a dozen cities and see more than triple that in projects. Some of these cities are familiar, like Tokyo and Kyoto and Hiroshima and others are far off the beaten path places most people don’t even know exist. But when that’s where the projects are and so that’s where I will go.
I landed in Tokyo on October 20th and scheduled my trip to make my way south from Tokyo to Kagoshima in Kyushu, a somewhat similar route to a previous trip with the rational that I’d keep ahead of winter and move towards the tropics so as to stay in the good weather as long as possible. Over the first week I felt perpetually back in summer. The weather was near 20 degrees and I wore t-shirts to combat the humidity.
On my first day I visited three public toilets scattered around near Meiji Jingu and Shibuya crossing. Public toilets are one of the most comforting parts of Japan because you can find them in every train station and every park, regardless of the size so one doesn’t need to worry about holding it in or paying for a public restroom like in Europe or America. Since there are so many, they are sometimes designed by prominent architects. Shigeru Ban, for example, designed a collection that have transparent walls that become opaque when locked. I visited this and two others and then went to a well known architectural project called Hillside Terrace which was designed by Fumihiko Maki beginning in 1969 and continuing development for the next 30 years as new buildings were slowly added to the site. At the time, it was one of the first modern architecture projects to feature a commercial ground floor with residences above — something that Canada is only beginning to understand 50 years later and arguably failing at.
Other notable projects I visited include the Sumida Hokusai Museum by Kazuyo Sejima. Not only did I get to explore a project by a famous architect but I also saw some of Hokusai’s ukiyo-e wood block artwork.
This trip is the closest I’ve stayed to Asakusa temple and I’m constantly passing it. It’s weird seeing it without the massive tourist crowds, although I still saw a decent number of foreigners. Most of the attractions I visited are with Japanese people and I’m usually assumed to be one too. The mask helps to hide my Chinese features but in nearly all of my interactions from the cashier at the convenience store to the train attendant when I went through the wrong gate I’ve stumbled over my Japanese. It’s rough and out of practice. A toddler can say more then I can. I don’t have the vocabulary to suitably articulate my thoughts which makes for a lot of blundering. Fortunately the Japanese are the most patient and polite people so it doesn’t feel so bad. I’m constantly scribbling down notes in my notebook and referencing it on the metro.
While modern architecture was the primary focus, I couldn’t miss out on visiting some new traditional Japanese Gardens. Rikugien is often considered Tokyo’s most beautiful Japanese landscape garden alongside Koishikawa Korakuen, not too far away. Rikugien literally means “six poems garden” and reproduces in miniature 88 scenes from famous poems. I didn’t know the poems but some of the views were quite nice. Most attractively, I found a very nice resting pavilion beside a river and a waterfall that I really enjoyed. It is not my favourite Japanese garden, but it was very nice none the less.
Up the street from Rikugien is the Former Furukawa Gardens which has both a western rose garden as well as a Japanese garden. The best view in this garden was of a large stone lantern beside the pond.
Kadokawa museum is a Kengo Kuma project along with a shrine and mall at the border between Tokyo and Saitama. It is a large stone block with a manga library, exhibition and book library inside. The business model is somewhat unexpected — one must buy a ticket to visit or get a day pass to enter. I got the regular ticket that let me into the manga library where I could sit and read as well as the book theatre which was another library with random books and the main attraction. It features a room of book shelves designed based on the brain where there’s a short video screening. It seemed like some of the theatre was closed when I visited but it was notably smaller than I expected from YouTube videos I’d seen. I found it to still be cool, but kinda expensive for the pleasure of a short video and thumbing through a bunch of books since it’s not really the kind of library where you’d sit and read for a long time — at least I don’t think so. On the other hand, it is a successful attraction in that it brought me out to the edge of Tokyo to see it.
Across the street is the Teamlab Acorn Forest. Teamlab has created the best interactive light displays I’ve seen and so I was set on seeing this one and all of their other exhibitions. It’s actually possible to see without buying a ticket but the best experience is of course inside. Scattered around the forest are illuminated acorns that change colour with the music emanating from hidden speakers. There were a few couples and friends on dates but since I didn’t have anyone I just stood in the forest thinking of how great a date place this would be and staring into the space between light and dark. It would be cool to design a park and light installation like this.
Since I was on a grand architecture tour I thought that it would be prudent to visit the National Museum of Western Art in Ueno. Designed by Le Corbusier, I’ve passed this building probably half a dozen times but never ventured inside. Le Corbusier is widely considered to be somewhat of an ass with an oversized ego but he had profound impacts on the architectural discipline and heavily influenced Japanese modern architecture in the 20th century. This museum is his only project in Japan, though I’ve been two of his other works in Zurich and Cambridge.
I like his work because there’s always lots to discover and talk about, something that doesn’t always appear in other architect’s work. For example, there’s a nice entrance ramp im the entrance hall that switchbacks up to the second floor. It’s not the most direct or efficient circulation but it makes one feel the change and revel in the light coming through the skylight divorced from the structure. As such, the structure is put on display as are the cantilevered balconies.
The gallery was designed as a horizontal spiral that could theoretically be endlessly expanded but never was. What’s nice is that the mezzanine above appears suspended and the light through the semi opaque panels helps to light the gallery floor. Unlike contemporary architecture which would treat the mezzanine as a volume within the double height gallery, the detailing of the floor flanges makes it appear more like a suspended bridge that is a better spatial experience.
Lastly, I’ve found that I really enjoy Le Corbusier stairs. Many architects try to make feature stairs in their houses but few approach the lightness and beauty of Corbs which is especially relevant since his are made from concrete.
Contrasting the modern concrete museum was a shrine pavilion at the Ueno Tokugawa shrine. I didn’t know if this shrine, tucked away in the corner of the park but there’s a beautiful pavilion designed by Hiroshi Nakamura. Not only is it a well crafted project but it has a nice narrative. One of the old ginkgo trees was severely corroded and in danger of collapsing so before an accident could even occur the tree was cut down and used for the roof of the pavilion. A small window in the back wall stoops down to look at the stump of the downed tree.
The original plan was to construct a space where visitors could receive amulets and talismans, but upon visiting the site, the desire to curate a place of prayer with the 600-year-old tree at the forefront of the blueprint came to be more important.
Another powerful project that I saw was house NA by Sou Fujimoto. This is a well known project for being daring and bucking convention. It is instantly recognizable but I was surprised that despite it’s radical nature, it seemed to fit into the neighbourhood quite well. It didn’t seem out of place on the street and didn’t draw attention unless one was specifically looking for it. That’s good because most people look at pictures and think that there mustn’t be any privacy with all the glass windows. Seeing it at night with the curtains, it glowed and I could imagine an architecture student proposing something similar and talking about how cool it would be to see the shadows of people moving behind the curtains. This is a project that is highly contraversial in opinion so it was nice to see it for myself and formulate my own thoughts.
This is a project that I stood on the street absorbing for some time. I didn’t want to invade their privacy but there were a lot of details to take in. I was surprised that the blue VW bug and potted plants on the landings were still there. I could recall them from images of when the project was first unveiled. It seemed strikingly similar to the 2012 photos, only with a bit of aging to the concrete.
While moving among different architecture projects I also visited the staircase famous from the movie Kimi no na wa (2016) by Makoto Shinkai. This unassuming staircase has become a huge draw for local and international tourists and fans of the anime.
There’s so much to talk about, including going to the sword museum and Kigumi japanese joinery museum but I’ll end by saying that I stumbled upon the GA magazine gallery right before leaving Tokyo. I didn’t know about it but they had an exhibition on Yo Shimada houses and it would be over by the time I returned to Tokyo so I checked it out on the day I left for Fuji. Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take photos but I thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the models. He’s one architect where the models really explain the projects but the drawings are practically useless. I think this is because his work has many stacked levels and several staircase so the plans aren’t easy to read whereas the models instantly explain the connection between different levels and the circulation. In the spirit of studying Japanese architecture, I bought the exhibition book to study during my trip. I plan on buying a lot of books and magazines at the end of the trip so I don’t have to lug them around everywhere but this seemed like a prudent purchase while it was still fresh in my mind.
Along with blogging, this trip I’m trying something new by making daily videos of the places I visited on my instagram account. Combined together, this is a video of my time in Tokyo:
All the architecture places I visited in Tokyo:
October 21
- Asakusa Jinja
- Meiji Jingu
- Haruno Ogawa park transparent toilet — Shigeru Ban
- C1 — Gwenael Nicolas
- Miyashita park — Nekki Sekki
- Shibuya Crossing
- Sarugaku — Akihisa Hirata
- Hillside Terrace — Fumiko maki
- Tsutaya Books Daikanyama — Klein Dytham Architecture
- Nakagami — Suppose Design Office
- Unknown building
- Tokyo College of Music — Nekki Sekki
- Ebisu park toilet — wonderwall
- Ebisu station toilet — samurai
Oct 22
- Sumida Hokusai museum — kazuyo Sejima
- Former Yasuda Garden
- Sword museum
- Yokosmicho park, great kanto earthquake museum
- Okaken works realestate building
Oct 23
- Rikugien garden
- Former Furukawa garden
- Asukayama park and paper museum
- Koishikawa botanical garden
- Sudou park
- Yanaka Ginza street
Oct 24
- Asakusa tourist info
- kadokawa museum — Kengo Kuma
- Teamlab acorn forest
Oct 25
- National Museum of Western Art — Le Corbusier
- Tokugawa shrine Ueno — Hiroshi Nakamura
Oct 26
- House NA sou Fujimoto
- Koenji Theatre Toyo Ito
Oct 27
- Kugimi joinery museum
- Senagawa station toilet — suppose design office
- Tokyo stadiums — Kengo Kuma
- Small house Sejima Kazuyo or SANAA
- Tower House Takamitsu Azuma
- Undercover lab — Klein Dytham
- Tokyu Plaza Harajuku
- Gyre Ometesando — MVRDV
- Dior Ometesando — SANAA
Oct 28
- GA gallery Yo Shimada
