
Style & Design Apr 29, 2018
Architect Fumihiko Maki: Finding intimacy in the city
by Greg Logan
Fumi Maki talks about a landmark book of Japanese architecture, "City with a Hidden Past," and the virtues of Tokyo's inner havens.
Architect Fumihiko Maki: Finding intimacy in the city
Fumi Maki talks about a landmark book of Japanese architecture, "City with a Hidden Past," and the virtues of Tokyo's inner havens.
'Japanese Architecture as a Collaborative Process': A must-read to understand Japanese architecture
Dana Buntrock's fieldwork highlights the collaborative nature of architecture, manufacturing and construction in Japan.
New inn style: Tokyo's first luxury ryokan
There are seasonal ikebana arrangements, tatami-mat flooring, kimono-style outfits for guests and a steaming hot onsen spring water bath. So far, so ryokan, the traditional-style Japanese inns that dot the country. Until a screen slides open in one of the guestrooms, and 11th-floor views of ...
Gabriel Orozco: always ahead of the game
Gabriel Orozco has returned to Tokyo. Following his retrospective "Inner Circles" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in early 2015, "Visible Labor" at Rat Hole Gallery is a collection of new works that explore Orozco's classic themes of the city, transportation and games, ...
'Gabriel Orozco: Visible Labor'
This show runs concurrent with Gabriel Orozco's solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, his first large-scale exhibition in Japan. During his recent stay here, Orozco created a new series of works titled "Visible Labor," featuring pieces inspired by Japanese architecture and ...
Aomori's moving castle and other architectural tales
Once every century, Hirosaki in Aomori Prefecture experiences an unusual event — the Hirosaki Moving Castle Project — when the city relocates an entire castle using manpower only. This year is that 100th year, and from Sept. 20 to 27, more than 3,200 travelers gathered ...
Nov. 7-Jan. 31 The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami left its mark on all who live in or are connected to Japan, including many of the country's architects. The destruction it caused made many realize that there are times when, no matter how ...
Saitama's 'Little Edo' is big on Japan's colorful history
As my smartphone clock flashes from 11:59 a.m. to 12 p.m., I watch the visitors to Kawagoe, in Saitama Prefecture wipe the sweat from their foreheads and direct their attention toward a more primitive form of time keeping — the Toki no Kane (Bell ...
Don't be green about the charm of tatami
When we were thinking of buying a condominium, we visited several old danchi — apartments built by Japan's former public housing corporation — because they were cheap and, we thought, easy to renovate. One of the units we inspected had bedroom floors made of ...
Keith Haring's urban art finds apt lodgings in Japan's countryside
If someone were to tell you that the largest private collection of New York street and pop artist Keith Haring's work is stashed in some of Japan's lushest mountainous countryside, and if you went to visit it, you could stay in a Keith Haring-inspired ...
Kitagawara shapes a new Kobuchizawa Station
Since 2011, Tokyo University of the Arts and the city of Hokuto in Yamanashi Prefecture have been working together to redesign its Kobuchizawa Station building as part of an initiative to breathe new life into the rural area. Local citizens were involved through numerous workshops ...
Kaoru Mende's bright ideas on darkness
'Whenever I see the alcove of a tastefully built Japanese room, I marvel at our comprehension of the secrets of shadows, our sensitive use of shadow and light," wrote the prominent modern novelist Junichiro Tanizaki in his 1933 essay on Japanese aesthetics, "In Praise ...