Tokyo Blog, Tokyo Story
The blog of Stephen David Smith, Tokyo, Japan 2012
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Muji Village
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.
New Tokyo Tower (Tokyo Sky Tree)
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’.
Mokuzai Kaikan
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.
Nakagin Capsule Tower – The Future Was 30 Years Ago
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.
Shinjuku Turtle Mural
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.
Little Old Bookstore of Kuramae
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).
Tokyo Midtown
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).
That’s how to build ‘em
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!
