Tokyo architectural (reading) guide

Architecture has been a big passion of mine since I have lived in Tokyo. Iconic buildings from the postwar era brought to life the Japanese economic miracle, and I began portraying some of them here. It ended up being one of the mainstays of this blog, with more than 100 buildings or structures featured, not just in Japan but on all five continents.

What follows is a mini-guide of Tokyo’s architecture as written about on this blog, with an emphasis on the postwar period from 1950-1970. The buildings span architectural masterpieces by Japan’s starchitects, spiritual buildings and complexes, and relatively unknown gems. Collectively they help paint a picture of the remarkable transformation this country and this city has undergone (and to some extent still is).

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Enduring legacy

If you colour a German map according to various socio-economic indicators, you will see a clear East-West demarcation. As Steffen Mau writes in Ungleich Vereint:

(…) Wer sich eine Vielzahl unterschiedlichster Indikatoren anschaut – Ausstattung der Haushalte, Erwerbsquoten, Kirchenbindung, Vereinsdichte, Anteil von Menschen mit Migrationsbiografie, Ausgaben für Forschung und Entwicklung, Exportorientierung der Wirtschaft, Vertrauen in Institutionen, Patentanmeldungen, Hauptsitze großer Firmen, Produktivität, Erbschaftssteueraufkommen, Zahl der Tennisplätze, Anteil junger Menschen, Moscheendichte, die Lebenserwartung von Männern, die durchschnittliche Größe der landwirtschaftlichen Betriebe, Parteimitgliedschaft, Kaufkraft, Wert des Immobilieneigentums, Größe des Niedriglohnsektors –, der kommt immer wieder zu dem gleichen Ergebnis: Eine Phantomgrenze durchzieht das geeinte Land. 

I guess the most famous coloured map today is Germany’s electoral map–on which the (blue) Alternative fuer Deutschland scores a significant optical victory in the former GDR.

I was intrigued to learn about additional dimensions of persistent East-West differences, particularly in health, and focusing on those born around the fall of the Wall (reflecting my recent interest in the subject matter). The trigger for this was the press coverage of Lara Bister’s award-winning PhD dissertation.

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Balmain (economic) history

Balmain map from between 1906-1910, State Library of NSW archives, download a full resolution version here

The Balmain peninsula only lies about one kilometer west of Sydney’s “city”, separated by the natural harbour. The Wangal people have called this area their home for thousands of years before European settlement. I have walked the local streets up and down for leisure and with the baby and often wondered about the stories that have taken place here in the past.

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Adlergestell

I picked up Adlergestell by Laura Laabs and finished it in just a few sittings — it drew me in more than I expected. Laura and I haven’t seen each other in about twenty years, but we were friends in high school and travelled through Kyrgyzstan together in 2004. Reading her debut novel felt a bit like revisiting that time — not only because of her voice, but because the story hits close to home in more ways than one.

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Happy Unequal Unity Day

A few weeks ago, I clicked on a Spotify suggested audiobook on East-West relations, and for lack of anything else to listen to, I started Steffen Mau’s “Ungleich Vereint: Warum der Osten Anders Bleibt”. It took only a few concentrated sittings. Since then, I have been immersing myself in several other books on the topic, and am hoping to pen a multi-book review with some autobiographical vignettes in the weeks or months to come.

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Billionaires and limitarianism

Once in a while even silly “thought provoking” articles require a riposte. Michael Strain’s defense of billionaires is one of these. You can read it in the FT, and also consider the hundreds of unanimously critical comments. Reading it made me think about the book I am currently reading which calls for very tight limits on wealth accumulation: “Limitarianism”, much more on that below.

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East-West Street and Lemberg

Philippe Sands’ “book “East West Street” was hard to stomach but I couldn’t put it down. Sands traces his family history in today’s Lviv in the Ukraine, yesteryear’s Lemberg in Austria-Hungary. His grandfather’s family has its roots near the city. Like most of Galicia’s Jewish population, it was almost entirely murdered during the holocaust.

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Tokyo’s modernization must not endanger unique neighborhoods

Jorge Almazán and I wrote an op-ed for Nikkei Asia, in which we argue that Tokyo’s current “once in a century” modernization push is risking to destroy the city’s unique urbanism. The city’s archetypical neighborhoods came about in the postwar period without planning, but they need increasing protection from large-scale redevelopments.

Here are the first two paragraphs. Get in touch if you want to read the full text:

“Despite being the largest urban agglomeration in the world, Tokyo works. It is surprisingly human in scale, walkable and safe. Its success is rooted not in a high-rise, futuristic cityscape but in its intimate neighbourhoods. These dense, low-rise, often mixed-use enclaves — traditionally rich in small retail and businesses, community ties and flexible spaces — have made Tokyo one of the most liveable cities in the world.

But this Tokyo is under threat. A new wave of large-scale redevelopments, imposed from the top down without planning or long-term vision, is reshaping the urban fabric — particularly around train stations. The new developments replace commercial streets for privatized plazas that eliminate true public space. Without stronger protections, Tokyo risks losing the very model that made it so successful. (…)”

Darling Street, Balmain

Darling Street in 1999, outside the Institute Arcade, by Philip Gostelow, from the State Library of NSW

Balmain has been our home in Sydney since we arrived here shortly before Christmas in 2021. Physically, our life has revolved around Darling Street. It is a nice feeling to be locally anchored for a peripatetic family like ourselves.

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