Tokyo Blog

The capsule hotel concept has been familiar to the Japanese for several decades, but still hasn’t taken off in the west. This may have been because of the often tacky and unrefined nature of the capsule hotels themselves, or an inbuilt response to unfamiliar concepts such as these as being weird and uninviting. Japan has never had any such problem embracing novel or strange solutions to everyday life, but when I was living in the UK, I certainly couldn’t have imagined them taking off. Even so, they would make great alternatives to expensive inner city hotels, could prove extremely useful in airports (as we saw during the recent disruption caused by the Icelandic volcanic eruption), and could even provide shelter for late night revelers in urban areas, maybe even reducing drink driving.

If it ever were to cross the continents and make it to the west, let’s hope it arrives in the form of Kyoto’s new 9h Capsule Hotel designed by Fumie Shibata of Design Studio S. The name 9h comes from the concept of having 1 hour to shower, 7 hours to sleep, and 1 hour to rest (a total of 9 hours), although you can actually stay anything up to 17 hours in one day. The thing that really sets this capsule hotel apart from all the others that have gone before are the futuristic minimalist interiors, excellent facilities and the technologically advanced features, such as the biorhythm-aware Panasonic pod management systems that wake guests individually with simulated dawns of controlled lighting instead of noisy alarm clocks. Really though, it’s the industrial design that I love about this project. It is perfectly aligned with the discerning tastes famous in Kyoto with sleek black, dark wood and brilliant white being found throughout. The design of the electronic elements, the shapes of the capsule windows and the tasteful graphic design further reinforce the Japanese feel and serves to firmly set this apart from the awful Yotel at London Heathrow and makes the Nite Nite hotels look distinctly average.

I’m thinking of taking a trip to Kyoto soon, so I’ll make sure I spend one night here. I’ve never been so excited about the idea of sleeping in any other type of accommodation. That means something, surely.

On Chuo Dori, a.k.a. ‘Ginza Street’ (in Ginza, Tokyo) there’s a new bar open ready for the summer. It’s operated by Asahi, one of Japan’s biggest beverage companies, and sells only their mainstay, flagship brew, Asahi Super Dry. What’s unique is that the beer is freezing cold, as is the interior temperature of the bar - perfect for escaping the balmy Japanese summer.

Each glass costs ¥550, is served at a strict temperature of between 0°c and -2°c, and you can even pour the beer yourself from the bar taps! The temperature of the interior is shown on the outside of the bar and you can just see it in the picture I took at the top of this post. The Asahi Super Dry Extra Cold Bar in Ginza is open now until the end of August 2010.

I was going to mention this before it actually happened, but I didn’t get around to it: Ginza’s Kabuki-za is now closed, the final farewell performances having been played out and the doors closed to the public for the last time. Now begins the huge task of preparing the building for demolition, which primarily involves emptying it of all the furniture, equipment, Kabuki accoutrements and priceless objects. In the above picture you can see how it looks now, and at the end of this post how it’s going to look when the new building is finished.

For those who are unaware, Kabuki is a highly stylized form of Japanese drama often involving music and dancing. Costumes and makeup tend to be extravagant and the dialogue, an illegible form of archaic Japanese. The practitioners are usually part of a dynasty of such performers and highly revered. Take for example actors such as Nakamura Shikan VII, Sakata Tōjūrō IV, Nakamura Tomijūrō V, Onoe Kikugorō VII, and Ichikawa Danjūrō XII. The latter of which is possibly the most famous.

The company that owns the building, Shochiku Corp., claims the rebuild is due to concerns over whether the building could withstand a major earthquake, but I suspect there are other motives. Land in Ginza is the most expensive anywhere in the world, and the current low-rise Kabuki-za sprawls over a large area. It’s obvious that the land could be better exploited, and as you walk around the back of the Kanuki-za it actually looks a bit tatty in places. Personally, I like it. It reminds me of the bathhouse from the famous Studio Ghibli anime Sen to Chihiro no Kami-kakushi (Spirited Away). The project is expected to be finished in 2013.

Moving out to my new neighbourhood means I’m just a little bit further from popular west-side areas like Shibuya and Naka-Meguro, but even in anonymous areas like Nishi-Kasai you can still uncover some interesting places. Take for example my local video game arcade which appears to be a huge rusting armour-clad fortress. The cliche is completed using the font that Hollywood murdered: Bank Gothic. Regardless, this is a BIG video arcade!

You just don’t get the planning permission to build stuff like this in other cities. It reminds me of what one travel writer said about Tokyo. They said “Tokyo is a city devoid of beauty”. They were exaggerating of course, but in the classic sense it’s true to some extent. You can visit any city in the world and see far more historic buildings and monuments, and you certainly wouldn’t see anything as outlandish as this. But, for some people this surreal image of the future in a city akin to a giant, sprawling theme park is far more appealing. I got more satisfaction from visiting Nakagin Capsule Tower than I did visiting any temple or shrine in the city. For me the real cultural landmarks are ones such as these. Giant robot statues, opulent shopping centres, and bright neon hoardings.

I’m pretty excited about the new housing development about to open on schedule (of course) in Funabashi, Chiba (30 min from Tokyo). Muji Village is, as you’d expect, a housing development designed by Muji, the Japanese lifestyle ‘no-brand’ brand that embraces Japanese minimalist and practical product design to create extremely affordable and yet stylish clothes, furniture, stationery, and practically anything else you can think of. Personally, I can’t get enough of Muji, so I’ll be taking an architectural sightseeing trip to the site some time before Christmas. The chance of living in one is probably very remote at this present time as waiting lists will certainly have been filled.

The project is a collaboration between Muji and Mitsubishi Jisho real Estate Co., one of the largest in Japan. Muji will be designing everything, Mitsubishi will only be responsible for construction. The concept is thus: Green, Plain, Community. Sounds less than inspiring, but you could transliterate it to Nature, Simplicity, Community which maybe sounds more inviting! Anyway, this means plenty of foliage, a timeless aesthetic and airy communal spaces where residents will be able to mingle.

Construction is well underway of the new broadcasting and observation tower, Tokyo Sky Tree - it now stands at around 100m tall. Designed by Tadao Ando and costing a whopping ¥60,000,000,000, the tower will be one of the world’s tallest at 634m and, judging by the CG mock-ups, looks like the kind of tower you would see on the front cover of 80’s sci-fi novels. You can see the current state of affairs in the bottom right of the picture (inset).

The tower is located in Oshiage, Sumida-ku, on the east side of the city, also known as Shitamachi or ‘Downtown’.

Tokyo has a new feature of its architectural landscape, being heralded as yet another success by most. It even received a nomination at the this year’s Barcelona World Architecture Festival. It can be found in the Shinkiba area of Tokyo (in the East of the city). The large number of timber wholesalers in this area has been acknowledged in the design of this building, it being one of very few structures to use wood so abundantly and to such great effect in the construction of its facade. The wood theme is continued throughout, with interiors and detailing also making use of the material. To me this is very Japanese, and when I look at the building, it reminds me of the detailed rectangular patterns in the wood of traditional Japanese ryokans and… Muji bookshelves!

Building designed by Nikken Sekkei Ltd.

Check out the full set of pics of the Nakagin Capsule Tower on my flickr.

There’s a building in Tokyo that, to my mind, represents Tokyo. When I looked at the Nakagin Capsule Tower yesterday and imagined what lay behind it’s rusting porthole windows, I realised that it fits with all of the pre-conceptions I had of Tokyo, of people living in tiny modular spaces, futuristic, geometric buildings, grungy concrete facades with anonymous, gloomy peepholes. Brutally modern, but still unmistakably Japanese in origin, the Tower has the same appeal as an old Casio digital watch. It’s obviously a past attempt at realising the future, but it succeeds at doing this on so many levels. It still puts to shame every shiny steel structure in the vicinity in terms of it’s presence. A brutal, decaying monolith sticking out between two high rise buildings in the Tokyo business district of Shinbashi.

The building was completed in 1972, designed by a young Japanese architect called Kisho Kurokawa. The designer himself said, in an interview with TAB, that the capsules were meant to be replaced and maintenance was supposed to be carried out every 25 years, but the building is now 37 years old, and nothing has been done since it’s original construction. For this reason, it has recently fallen into disrepair, with problems arising from water leakages and electrical faults, as well as the rusting and general degredation of the capsules themselves. The building has 13 stories, with each of the capsules which make up the floors being attached to the enormous central shafts by just 4 high-tension bolts. The idea was that the capsules could be individually changed without disturbing the others, fulfilling objectives of sustainable architecture rooted in the metabolist architectural movements popular at the time. The Nakagin Capsule Tower was the first of it’s kind, designed to provide affordable housing to office workers unable to make it back to their real homes on weekdays.

When Nakagin went bankrupt some years ago, they were bought out by U.S. hedge funds. Now the companies behind the acquisition are planning to have it demolished. Some architectural preservation groups are campaigning to save the tower and have it listed as a world heritage site, and I agree with that. It’s unlike any building I’ve seen before - it’s got a kind of immortal quality, probably derived from its very sci-fi appearance. Trouble is, there are doubts as to whether the building is resistant to earthquakes, and there is some controversy over the possible use of asbestos in the building’s construction. Time will tell as to whether such a doomed building is possible of saving, or whether such a seemingly invincible, obtrusive, controversial structure is capable of being destroyed at all.

And so I’m stood in the side street with The Tower looming overhead and there are some business men in suits smoking cigarettes outside the convenience store at the foot of the building. I’m looking in their direction, and further up the street there’s a small shop or office which, on closer inspection, turns out to be a small real estate agent. I thought it would be too good to be true if they had an advertisement in the window for a capsule to rent in the Nakagin Capsule Tower itself, but there it was.

Check out the full set of pics of the Nakagin Capsule Tower on my flickr.

When in Shinjuku the other day, I spotted this turtle climbing the wall of a building. I thought it was so well painted that I should get a picture of it. The kanji character on the turtle’s back says 勝 (katsu) which means win. If you look closely, there are other, smaller turtles scaling the building, as if climbing a hill. So I think the meaning of the character relates to some determination to achieve - possibly that of the company housed in the building.

I’ve been walking past this place for months and I wanted to take a picture of it. It’s a very small, old bookstore, based in one of the oldest buildings in the area. An old woman clad in kimono tends the shop which is open onto the street. A small oil burner keeps the place from getting too cold in the winter months and if you do go inside you can find piles of books everywhere you look. They all look old or used, and in places the shelves have broken and the rows have collapsed down on one another. I can’t read the books at all, but I like going in and looking at the retro covers with the funny typefaces - much to the bemusement of the woman who watches me from the back. I should buy a load just to use to decorate my bookshelves, you can get one for as cheap as ¥100 (about 70p or $1).

I’ve been indoors working a lot recently, so I decided I would take time out to visit another of the places on my list: the shopping and art complex, Tokyo Midtown. I’d already heard about the place before, so I kind of knew what to expect. The idea behind Tokyo Midtown seems to be sophisticated shopping with an emphasis on art and design. The art and design angle is represented throughout the site, but mainly by 21_21 Design Sight, and the Suntory Museum of Art. I visited 21_21 Design Sight which is an amazing building designed by architect Tadao Ando. I put some photos up to look at on flickr for Tokyo Midtown and just a few for 21_21 Design Sight (photography was not allowed in the building, and although I tried to shoot a few sneaky ones, they came out all blurred).

This is a photo of a new building in my neighbourhood, that some construction workers have been building. It’s taken them about a month to finish it. The whole thing. It’s awesome how fast they just built it. It looks pretty standard for Tokyo, as far as I can tell. I’m just glad they’ve finished it, they were making a load of noise on site, from about 6am onwards!