Tokyo Blog

Musical Interlude. I couldn’t find any videos worthy of showcasing the fine electronic music produced by Susumu Yokota, so I made my own. The track is Azukiiro No Kaori by Susumu Yokota from his Sakura album. All of the footage was shot Autumn/Winter 2008 and Autumn 2009.

Monocle are now offering this limited edition tote bag for every subscriber. It’s made in collaboration with Porter, the legendary Tokyo bag company that readers may remember from a previous post. I personally love the design and everything about it. I haven’t subscribed yet, but I’m seriously considering it. That is, if they ship to Japan.

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.

The people of good taste at Tokyobike sell simple, well designed and well made bikes via their website tokyobike.com. These bikes are somewhere between the fixed gear bikes that have such a strong ridership in Tokyo right now, and the kind of practical urban cycles that Muji used to stock in it’s Yurakucho store before the range changed to the meagre offering of mamacharis that it is now. Needless to say, it’s been added to my wants list.

Naoto Fukasawa is one of the most well renowned industrial designers in Japan. Most people will know his work through MUJI (Mujirushi Ryohin Keikaku), the Japanese lifestyle goods retailer, having been responsible for their famous wall-mounted CD player along with a raft of other products. Anyone wanting to get an overview of his output to date should get down to 21_21 Design Sight at Tokyo Midtown between October 16 and January 31 for an exhibition called The Outline, featuring approximately 100 of Naoto Fukasawa’s product designs in photographs taken by Tamotsu Fujii.

This is another musical interlude. No footage to speak of here, just Aphex Twin’s sublime remix of The Gentle People’s track ‘The Journey’. This track can be found on the 26 Mixes for Cash compilation by Aphex Twin on WARP.

I’m a little upset about this, because I just got back from a visit to the UK, and it looks like I’m going to miss Micro Men, the new BBC Four drama series telling the story of the life and inventions of the legendary ZX Spectrum creator, Sir Clive Sinclair. I had a ZX Spectrum 128k when I was a kid (that was to be my second computer, the Oric 1 was my first) and it was important in cultivating my love for electronics. I also know that Clive Sinclair was an erratic megalomaniac and genius, so with all the retro technological geekery piled on, this looks set to be an unmissable show.

UPDATE: Maybe you can watch it in BBC’s iPlayer (only supposed to be available to people in the UK) if you’re a wizzkid.

Ever wondered what it’s like to drive a Tokyo JR train? Actually, I hadn’t until I got a rare chance to see the driver doing his thing. Usually the glass is smoked or there’s a screen obstructing your view, and I’ve never seen this again since. Check out the illegible display on his computer screen!

This is happening in Kobe, but I thought it tied-in quite nicely with the recent Gundam statue in Odaiba. Basically, it’s a 1/1 scale version of the Tetsujin 28 robot from Japanese popular culture. It’s appeared in anime and live action shows here in Japan, it’s also known as Gigantor and Iron Man #28 overseas. This thing is part-way through construction in Kobe’s Wakamatsu Park, and when finished will stand 60 feet tall and weigh-in at a whopping 50 tons. Although this one doesn’t move, I think I like it better. Even so, how many giant robots does one country need?

Not only do WARP Records have a new site up, they are also celebrating 20 years of unparalleled excellence as a creative organisation in the form of WARP20. Possibly the only one of it’s kind to combine recording artists, video artists, directors, and visual design under one banner, the organisation from Sheffield UK is holding a series of events and is releasing a beautifully designed box-set of the cream of it’s back-catalogue. The Paris event was held in May, and there will be further events this year in New York, Sheffield, Tokyo and London. The Tokyo event will be held at Makuhari Messe and will feature live performances by Battles, Chris Cunningham, !!! (chk chk chk), Clark, Flying Lotus and others. I’m a big fan of WARP, so I’ll definitely be there. Shame there’s no Aphex Twin though.

I love Monocle. So I was interested when I saw this Monocle x Beams collaboration watch while on a shopping spree in Tokyo’s Ginza district on Saturday. I didn’t buy one, but it should be noted that Ginza Beams does a good line in skinny fit jeans.

UPDATE: The pic on the left was shot at the store using my mobile phone.

In accordance with building a more harmonious and civilized society for everyone to enjoy, Tokyo Metro (the local government controlled subway train service provider) has been campaigning via this series of brilliantly illustrated posters. They are looking to reduce incidences of inebriated salarymen sprawling themselves across carriage seats, and the evil of talking on mobile phones, whilst spreading awareness of the dangers of running to make the train as the doors are about to close. That’s hardly important to me; I’m already pretty compliant with the rules of Japanese train ettiquette. Mostly I like the style of these posters and some of them are quite funny.

Hold onto your hats, this is quite unbelievable. Some guys, who I think are German, have been able to put together an audio production environment that runs in your browser, called Audiotool. It obviously uses Flash, but I don’t know how this is possible! There doesn’t seem to be a sequencer, so it can’t really claim to give Reason a run for its money, but the visuals and the interaction design are pretty stunning. A nice tool to use to play with sounds, but not for finished tracks. Have fun, but remember to do some work!

The beauty continues, this time in the form of another musical interlude. I give you Radiohead’s Epic, ‘All I Need’ with edited footage from the 1996 French nature documentary film ‘Microcosmos’.