I blogged quite regularly about Japan’s economic history when living here in 2012-13. A fellow student of mine stumbled upon one of the posts during his research. As my first paper is soon due (it will look at the “default reconstruction” of Tokyo’s urban industries), I took this as a reminder to also look here for some clues for my current research.
A Hitachi washing machine as exhibited in the Edo Museum (more here)
My university hosted a Planetary screening the other day. Guy, the film’s director, came along to take questions from the audience.
From time to time, I receive some comments on the by now more than 200 blog posts on this site. As I have been doing quite a lot of “before and after” photo sets, quite a few people have been able to reconnect with their own past as a result.
September 1953 – Perry Apartments, left, with Harris Apartments on the right (Antonin Raymond), photograph from Gerald & Rella Warner Japan Slide Collection, reproduced with permission.
Japan’s initial success after the Second World War had a lot to do with the copying of Western technology. The economic miracle of the 1960s, however, rested on Japanese firms’ ever-increasing capability to innovate. The world was to get a taste of this when thousands of spectators visited Tokyo for the 1964 Olympic Games. Kenzo Tange’s Gymnasium provided a central venue of great symbolic power.
All photos by Manuel Oka (www.manueloka.com)
It is hard to conjure up a hotel building more emblematic than the Hotel Okura in Tokyo. In contrast to the Japanese avant-garde architecture of its days and the faceless corporate behemoths that came to dominate the city in the 1970s and ‘80s, this 1962 building synthesises traditional Japanese features with modernist architecture.
I came across this great website with photos from the centre of Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, principally taken around the city’s train station. They capture the essence of why visuals can be so powerful a tool to convey the changes that swept through postwar Japan.
1966 postcard with station area and castle in background
Despite all the work on the Yangon Architectural Guide, I managed to stick to a fairly regular posting schedule on my long-term Tumblr project. Time to look at some of the stats and features of the site.
I had a major blast visiting the Architecture Biennale in Venice this year. Although we had a little less than two days, we managed to see most of the main national pavilions, some of the other countries’ contributions as well as the Monditalia exhibition at the Arsenale.
Main Biennale pavilion
I went to an interesting presentation on the state of the Japanese private equity industry at Columbia the other day. Industry veteran Richard Folsom of Advantage Partners spoke about his fund, but it was really the comments of CBS professor Bruce Greenwald that I found interesting.
Unproductive machines?
My Tumblr on postwar Japan has managed to attract 1,100 followers since I started it half year ago or so. It’s become the place for me to put up close to 1,000 pictures of everything from architecture, documentary photography, advertisements to a growing collection of shinkansen paraphernalia that I find during my research. A project for the future is better categorisation; this would allow me to curate mini-exhibitions on certain architects, areas or urban experiences.
