At the time, they were homes most Japanese could only dream about. Within their thick concrete walls, they were equipped with such mod cons as flush toilets and stainless-steel kitchen sinks, and they even had separate bedrooms -- for parents and children.
These dream homes were the danchi (public-housing complexes). From the mid-1950s, they began appearing throughout Japan, their multistories often rising amid rice paddies on the outskirts of big cities.
Today these concrete housing projects may appear oppressive and even slumlike. But for many Japanese of the 1950s and early '60s, they represented progress almost beyond their imagining.