Tange Kenzo. A leading architect in Japan who brought Japanese architecture onto the world stage.

The Pritzker Prize, the “architecture Nobel”, was founded in 1979. From Japan, seven groups (eight people) have won the prize, even though only a single prize is awarded each year. 

I have no hesitation in saying that, without Kenzo Tange, Japan could not have produced such a number of great architects.

Tange played a central role in leading the construction industry after World War 2, and educated superb young architects to follow after him. Now, many of his disciples (Arata Isozaki, Kisho Kurokawa, Fumihiko Maki, Yoshio Taniguchi) are key players both in Tokyo and around the world. And buildings, which Tange designed are still an ornament to Tokyo.

One of Tange's masterpieces, a bold piece of modernism, is Yoyogi Gymnasium.  The Olympic Games were first held in Tokyo in 1964. The monumental Yoyogi stadium was an embodiment and symbol of Japan’s rapid economic growth since the war.

photo: Casa Brutus

<National Yoyogi Stadium> Completion: 1964
Built as a sub venue for the Tokyo Olympic Games. A dynamic curving roof uses a "suspended roof structure." The roof is suspended from two large pillars. As a result, the large interior space is uninterrupted.

Another is Tokyo Cathedral.

photo: Casa Brutus

<Tokyo Cathedral> Completion: 1964

The silhouette that stretches heavenward is reminiscent of Yoyogi Gymnasium. The exterior is made of stainless steel. The entrance doesn’t lead you straight inside, like a typical church. Rather, your route goes round up stairs to the nave. The ceiling has a cruciform sky light, and the mystical light falls on the nave as if leading worshippers to the presence of God.

Here are some others of Tange’s works that we can see in Tokyo. Tokyo Metropolitan Government building, United Nations University, Shinjuku Park Tower, Fuji Television Head Office Building. Each is a landmark of the area where it stands. 

Now, let's take a look at a photo of Kenzo Tange. 

He looks gentle and cheerful. It seems that he really was good at socializing and, at one time, his house was a kind of salon for international celebrities such as Gropius, Waxman, Isamu Noguchi and Charlotte Perriand. Photographs of them all at the house survive. 

It is said that Tange was a very nice person. He treated everyone gently and equally. As an educator, his guidance of Arata Isozaki, Kisho Kurokawa, Fumihiko Maki and Yoshio Taniguchi to the heights of architecture was a great achievement.

Tange also created grand designs of cities on a large scale, rather than just for individual buildings. For example, he designed the visionary schemes for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial park and the Osaka Expo1970.

However, his works in later years, such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building and Unite Nation University are sometimes criticized as “authoritarian gothic.”  The style of his design changed a lot from his works in 1980s. 

I watched these two buildings grow in real time, and remember thinking they were intimidating. Some say that, as Tange succeeded, he was drawn into the circles of power and forgot the spirit of the common people.

It was when I went to Odaiba that I really noticed Tange's greatness. Odaiba is an artificial island and Tokyo's last frontier, developed as futuristic city. Today, it hosts the Fuji TV headquarters building, convention centers, science museums, huge amusement facilities, shopping centers, and so on. 

Certainly, Odaiba has all the necessary amenities, but to be honest, it doesn’t look futuristic, it is just a boring new city. With coherent urban planning, it could have been designed in any way and become something like the Marina District in Singapore. Still among the indifferent buildings, there is one that has a strong presence. That’s the Fuji TV headquarters building Tange worked on. It stands out as a unique beacon in the area.

photo: Tange Associates

If I could go back in time, there is a project I would like to ask Kenzo Tange to undertake. That is the redevelopment of Odaiba. If Tange had worked on a grand design for Odaiba, what would this last frontier have looked like? Even imagining it is exciting! 

Ukiuyo-e Is a Media that Shows Us the lives of Edo People.

I went to an exhibition of Ukiyo-e or Japanese wood block printings entitled “Kuniyoshi Kunisada,” which was held at the Bunkamura Museum in Shibuya.

Ukiyo in Ukiyo-e originally means sorrow and short-lived（憂き）, but the  meaning changed to buoyant（浮き浮き）as the society became stable and people started enjoying their lives in Edo, the largest city in Japan. 

The unique point of the exhibition is that the curator emphasizes the similarity of people in Edo and the people of today. 

Utagawa Kuniyoshi and Utagawa Kunisada, who were the top two the most popular ukiyo-e artists in Edo, vividly depicted the lives of Edo people.  Through their works, we can see Edo people are the same or more when it comes to appreciating the joy of everyday.  

The style of the two artists is quite different.  Kuniyoshi took the men by storm with his dynamic images of warriors and his bold compositions, while Kunisada intrigued women with his beautiful portraits of women. 

I feel that their ukiyo-e are like fashion magazines.  In  Kuniyoshi’s magazines（Ukiyo-e）, there comes a young man wearing a skull pattern kimono.  He looks like a punkish guy of the era.  In Kunisada’s fashion magazines, dazzling kabuki actors must have captured women fans. 

It’s funny and interesting to realize we of today are still doing the same things as the people 150 years ago.  The Edo period is not so long ago. 

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Takashi Murakami’s Superflat Collection

I went to the Yokohama Museum to see “Takashi Murakami’s Superflat Collection.”  You might think it’s the art work of Takashi Murakami, one of the most successful artists in contemporary art, but it’s the display of Murakami’s private collection as an energetic art collector.  It was mind-boggling and incredibly overwhelming.

The collection is assembled based on the artist’s unique eye and aesthetic.  From contemporary art to antiques, from Japan and other countries, it includes more than 5,000 items.  I think it’s more than a private collection in scale.  It seems to be collected just by his instinct and I felt as if I saw inside of his head. 

Murakami is one of my favorite artists.  Especially, I like what he is thinking and saying rather than what he is drawing.  He is a great concept maker and an eloquent speaker as well.  I remember his “declaration” for the exhibition “Super Flat Declaration” that he curated in 2001.   It starts with this phrase, “Japan might be the future of the world.  And the Japan of today is SUPER FLAT.”  So cool, isn’t it?

The declaration continues, “…everything from society and public morals to art and culture is super two dimensional.”  He says “Super Flat” is a new concept to understand Japanese original culture.  Now, Japanese students learn perspective and Western art at school.  The two dimensional structure has been disregarded since Japan modernized in the Meiji era.  However, Murakami indicated that sense of two dimensional structure have been handed down through games, manga, and animation culture.

In this exhibition, Murakami expanded the definition of the concept “Superflat.”  Everything in here seems to be equal in value.  There is no historical period, no genre, no hierarchies, and no logic in his collection.  It’s the chaotic world, which is a mixture of good and bad, valuable and invaluable. 

 Why has he been collecting so many art items?  He explains it is to find the answer “what is art?”  And he concludes that art is the crystallization of culture; that is, the social circumstances, human relationships, and ephemera of the era in which we live. 

As I expected, what he is thinking is still super interesting!

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Yoko Ono: from My Window

photo: Museum of Contemporary Art,Tokyo

I went to see an exhibition entitled “Yoko Ono: from My Window” held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo in Kiyosumi-shirakawa.  Yoko Ono is most of thought of in her relationship with John Lennon, but she has been a great artist in contemporary art long before she met him. 

She is one of the pioneers of conceptual art and I have been a big fan of her works.  The exhibition emphasizes her very beginning works in the 1960s’ including some events she held in Tokyo.  Looking at the photos and videos at the show, I was taken aback by how avant-garde they are.  They are still interesting and inspiring to this day.

Why do I like her works?  I took a moment to stop and think about it.  One reason is that her works have the power to stir my imagination.  For example, the “instructions for paintings” series.  They are just displaying instructional words on pieces of white paper like this: 

Painting for the Wind

Cut a hole in a bag filled with

seeds of any kind and place the

bag where there is wind.

With this instruction, you can imagine any process of changes after the seeds start spreading into the air.  Flying in the air, touching down on the ground, germinating and covering the ground with green leaves.  You can transfer the instructions to your own vision.  I think that the idea Yoko Ono came up with is a beautiful invention.  We can draw invisible pictures in our head and maybe, it’s more creative than real pictures. 

The second reason I like her works is that her art works are always positive.  There is nothing that scares me or depresses me in her works, even if their themes were anti-war.  I can always feel happy with them. 

After going through the exhibition, I was fully charged with the energy.

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Mitate and Hiroshi Sugimoto

I went to the Chiba City Museum of Art to see Hiroshi Sugimoto’s two part exhibition entitled “Past and Present in Three parts” and “Art and Leisure.”  It was a compact but extraordinarily gorgeous exhibition, which takes in his works including his three great photographic masterpieces and the “toko-no-shiturae,” or artistic settings for a tea ceremony room alcove.    

As a photographer, Sugimoto’s works are very conceptual.  Generally speaking, photos reflect a moment, but he endeavors to show history or the flow of time.  One of his masterpieces “seascape,” consisting of simply sea and sky, was created based on his idea, “Is it possible for us to see the same scenery that ancient people saw?” 

His “theatre series,” consisting of the white screen and the inside of a movie theater shows the passage of time using time-lapse exposure.  The white screens in his photos seem to show nothing but they are the accumulation of the light of 2-hour-movies.  In a sense, we can see a 2-hour-movie in a moment.  For Sugimoto, taking photos doesn’t mean just reflecting the real world.  He shows us the time we’ve never seen before.

 

Before he started his career as a photographer, he was an antique art dealer in NYC.  Still now, he is an art collector and with his expert eyes on Japanese art he carefully chose the combinations of hanging scrolls and artistic objects for a tea ceremony room alcove.  The 27 combinations displayed in the “Art and Leisure” section are innovative because he matched, for example, an old Japanese hanging scroll and a portrait bust statue of Christ harmoniously.

Whenever I see his masterpieces, they remind me of the word “mitate.”  It’s difficult to find an exact word in English, but it might be similar to “metaphor” or “replacing something in a different image.”  Mitate is a very basic way of thinking in traditional Japanese arts, such as landscape design, noh play and pottery.  Sugimoto’s mitate is always beyond my imagination and that’s why I’m strongly fascinated with his works.

photos: Chiba City Museum of Art

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My first Choju-Giga, scrolls of frolicking animals and humans.

One year has passed since I started leaning Japanese style painting.  During the first nine months, I was not allowed to even grip a brush to draw.  Instead, I was told to practice drawing lines, glasses, boxes and sketching flowers to acquire the very basic skills, which is useful for both Japanese and Western painting.

At last, the time has come!  After going through the long boring period of training, I reached the starting point to begin Japanese style painting.  My first lesson was replicating some of the scenes from Choju-Giga, or scrolls of frolicking animals and humans.  OMG!  It’s one of my favorite art pieces.  It was too good to be true.

Choju-giga were drawn in the Heian period by Toba Sojo and other painters.  It depicts the life of wild animals such as frogs, rabbits and monkeys as if they were human beings.  A frog and a rabbit are playing sumo wrestling.  Some rabbits are playing archery.  The livery description of animals evokes some feelings like how wonderful our lives are.

Choju-Giga is considered to be an origin of Japanese manga, or comics.  Although they don't have any speech balloons on the screen, I can imagine the sounds of laughing, singing and shouting coming out of the picture. 

Replicating pictures is a good way to come very close to the painters.  When I trace the lines, I feel the breath of the artist.  “Maybe, he must have stopped his brush here” or “he might have been confident with this strong stroke.”  As I copied his lines, I could understand more about this picture than when I was just looking at them. 

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Raf Simons's days in Christian Dior.

I was very surprised to know that Raf Simons, the artistic director of Christian Dior, left the most prestigious fashion house after his three and a half years contribution.

 “Dior and I,” is a fashion documentary film that depicts Raf’s eight weeks, from day one when he started working for Dior till his debut haute couture collection of fall-winter 2012.  Initially, I thought it’s just a behind the scene fashion movie, but it was much more than I expected.  On the contrary, it became one of my favorite movies of the year 2015.

Raf had been a director of Jil Snder, a Milan fashion brand, which is characterized as sharp with modern line and form.  As for Dior, it’s the most elegant and feminine brand.  People were very curious how Raf, a minimalist, would meet the high demands and create his own Dior style when he took the position as a director of Dior.

A haute couture collection usually takes six to eight months to prepare, but Raf was given only eight weeks.  What is worse, he had never designed haute couture before.  The movie reveals all the process of making the collection including some conflict with staff members and Raf’s nervousness as well.

What impressed me most is Raf’s attitude.  He is calm, shy and restricted rather than arrogant and self-indulgent, which people in the fashion industry are likely to be.  He is intensely focused and never loses control until the end.  He knows exactly what is required, that is, a mixture of Raf’s modern minimalism and Dior’s legacy.  It’s easy to say, but when I saw his final output, I knew he did it in a perfect way. 

Nowadays, almost everything seems to be determined by marketing.  People are likely to rely on the analyzed data and figures because they don’t want take any risks.  As for Christian Dior, Raf’s inspiration and creativity itself was the marketing that showed the big brand the way to go. 

Under the incredible pressure of high expectations, he must have carried a heavy load on his shoulder.  Raf explained the reason why he left Dior as “personal” only.  Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing his next challenge after leaving Dior.

The trailer of "Dior and I"

You can see the details of Raf Simons's first show 

that was introduced in the "Dior and I."  

Christian Dior Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture 

2012/13 AW held on July 2^nd  25 min

Raf Simons’s last collection for Jil Sander 2012/13 AW.  

It was held just before he moved to Christian Dior.  

It’s mesmerizing.  

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Taken on a visionary trip. Yubiwa Hotel’s performance at Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale.

photo: Tsunan Shinbun

This autumn, I went to Niigata to see a Yubiwa Hotel’s performance, titled “But I was so in love ---Tsunan-machi Okura snow shed version,” or あんなに愛しあったのに〜津南町大倉雪覆工篇,  held at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale.  Yubiwa Hotel is one of my favorite performance units and I had longed to see this performance since I saw it last timeat Ichihara Art×Mix in 2014.  

Shirotama Hitsujiya, the director of Yubiwa Hotel has a unique way of making dramas.  She trys to find “treasures” of the local area by doing ethnological research and creating stories based on them. This time, the drama is set in Tsunam-machi, a remote area in Niigata pref., which has heavy snow in winter.

We got to the Tsunan-machi Okura snow shed, which Hitsujiya selected as the stage for this performance.  The Okura snow shed, located just along the Shinano River, used to be a snow shelter to protect the local road and people from heavy snow.  We, the audiences were asked to walk back and forth through the snow shed with the actors as the story went on.  Basically, the shed became the tunnel that connects the real world with fantasy. 

Having heavy snow, sometimes over 4 meters a day in winter, and a decreasing population, Tsunan-machi has a lot of difficulties.  The drama starts when the schoolgirls who belong to “social study club” introduce the history and some legends of the region.  The play seems to raise several important matters; how can we cope with this situation and how can we figure out any solutions.  However, it’s not a social scientific drama, on the contrary, soon before we know it, we are drawn into a beautiful fantasy.

One schoolgirl says;

“Teacher, can we also become snow?  If so, we would be able to come back here again.” 

I think these words are a great invention of this drama because it is a fantastic solution to the problem that this remote area has. 

And then, winter comes and snow starts falling on the ground of Tsunan-machi with a snow fairy, or yukimushi.  The aerial dance that expresses the snow fairy was breathtaking and we saw the image of people coming back to their hometown by transforming themselves into flakes of snow.

Although there aren’t so many words in this drama or possibly because there aren’t so many words, the performance appeals to our senses and we feel at one with the fantasy that Hitsujiya created. 

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Taking a stroll around “Kachikura,” a hot creative place.

Have you ever heard ‘kachikura’?  It’s the name of a district located eastern part of Tokyo, from Okachimachi to Kuramae in Taito ward. 

（Asakusa is also in Taito ward and adjacent to this area）

The area used to be a town, where handicraft artisans who succeeded to the traditional craftsmanship gathered.  There are still many wholesalers and shops specializing in fashion items, such as hats, wallets, bags, jewelry and accessories and we feel remains of center of manufacturing here, although it has lost a bit of its past glory.

Recently, this area has been spotlighted again as a new manufacturing place and has attracted young creators.  The history of the craftsmanship might have inspired young talented people and encouraged them to invent something new.  They started their own brands, shops, cafes and galleries and it seems to boost the manufacturing movement here in Kachikura more.

The other day, I went for a stroll about the town.  Hanging out the area, I found many shops and nice fashion items that are based on the traditional craftsmanship. 

My original notebook.  I choose three kinds of paper with different touch and quality, 
bank paper, Manila paper and art paper.  
Whenever I open the notebook, I get so excited and I can’t help writing something.

The vicinity of Kuramae station, I visited Koncent (variety store), Maito (dyeing and weaving), Camera (leather goods and café) and Kakimori (stationary).  Please take a look at my new notebook with flower print.  It’s quite nice and lovely, isn’t it?  I made it at Kakimori that specializes in original notebooks and ink.  They have a variety of sheets of paper and parts of notebook and all you have to do is just choose your favorite materials.  For a lover of paper like me, Kakimori is a must.

When you head for Okachimachi from Kuramae, you’ll find an old building in the back street.  It’s Taito Designers Village.  The building once housed an elementary school has now become incubator offices for young entrepreneurs.  Taito local government started this project in 2004 to assist young designers in launching their businesses. 

Taito Designers Village

On the face of it, the area seems to be a business district but, 
once you are bit away from the main street, 
you’ll find some old Japanese houses like this. 

When you get to Okachimachi station, you’ll come across a unique facility called 2k540.  It utilizes beneath the elevated JR rail line and develops an artisan’s street.  Combining studio and shop, it shows us not only products but also artisan’s craftsmanship. 

2k540 is located between Okachimachi and Akihabara 
and its name means 2 km and 540m away from a starting point 
at Tokyo station. Oh,yes? 

I joined a workshop for gold gilding and made post cards at Nihon Department.  The artist (instructor) walked me through making cards and I made wonderful ones even if it was my first experience.  It was really wonderful time for me.

I made these cards. I think I can’t use them because they are too beautiful. 
Maybe, I will display them on the wall.

                   

Kachikura is very fun to visit and it’s more than I expected. 

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