tokyo midtown

my last week’s tokyo trip had some fun occasions other than attending the wedding: a reunion with my old tokyo friends and an update on what my daughter was up to, thanks to jason, who had offered me and masaco, my girlfriend, his guest room for our new york trip last year. he is now working for the american embassy in tokyo so that i could stay with him and his partner, ivo. the huge compound for american diplomats is located in a quiet residential neighbourhood, 赤坂 akasaka. it’s within walking distance from trendy 六本木 roppongi where narrow streets are crammed with night clubs and various eateries.

my friends and i gathered over “cantonese peking duck” (!!) at a “szechuan restaurant” on monday evening in 六本木 roppongi. actually, 六本木 roppongi had never been my haunt when i lived in tokyo. but this time, i liked it there for the first time ever because of jason’s place and tokyo midtown, a redevelopment area with a new commercial complex and new art museums. i visited there with masaco and jun-chan on tuesday. here are snapshots of shops and architecture in the area.

to begin with, i’d like to show you 21_21 design site designed by 安藤忠雄 tadao ando. it was raining cats and dogs. besides, it was closed. so i went back there the next day with shion, my daughter, and managed to take a pic beneath the fleckless blue sky as above.

i hated the rain, but still loved viewing the superb contrast of concrete and autumn leaves of shrubbery in the rain. i took my hat off to “the wizard of concrete” (i personally call 安藤 ando so) for that. i think the best part of tokyo midtown is lovely gardens laid out in the site.

国立新美術館 nact (the national art centre tokyo) is a stone’s throw from the complex. it was also closed. so i revisited there too the next day. back in tokyo midtown, i enjoyed browsing through the mall with fewer shoppers than other bustling areas like 渋谷 shibuya.

i got jealous of tokyoites, because the displays of muji shop in galleria were far more exquisite than my local muji shops. i’ve been a muji user since its launch in 1980 and written articles about london muji shops for exclusive muji magazines. i could not but feel tempted to buy something.

christmas decorations are seen here and there in tokyo midtown! i found snow flakes made of 美濃和紙 mino-washi (japanese paper) at 虎屋 toraya quite pretty. the confectionery holds at times a small exhibition within the shop, featuring japanese paper crafts this time.

虎屋 toraya is famous for its quality, artisanry and aesthetic. for sure, it doesn’t come cheap, though you can find its branches overseas, like we have a branch of dean & deluca across the aisle from 虎屋 toraya. the white paper decoration in the atrium is also made of 美濃和紙 mino-washi.

lastly, i should not forget about the tokyo tower, the most popular landmark of tokyo. well, it was supposed to be a fantastical cityscape of my tokyo rainy night. unfortunately, it turned out to be a total blur. i didn’t realise something was wrong with my camera. shame.

big thanks especially to jason, ivo and masaco!
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clorindo testa, the great and gentle brutalist

in december 2004, i was back in buenos aires. i was busy working on my magazine 11-page feature, while most porteños were getting ready for their holidays. i heard that the city would be empty by christmas. my sole local friend, tomás, was looking tied to his new e-commerce business so i couldn’t ask him to help out my assignment. i had no one to consult with, either. i started the project alone from scratch. i looked for local photographers who had done lots of building shots for editorial work on the net. since my magazine, casa brutus, is a design+architecture+fashion journal, the feature had to highlight architectural buenos aires.


i made good progress as i nearly walked my legs off. i hired 3 photographers: javier, who left me for a better job in the middle of the project; after all, he got me pablo for the rest of our shoots and ioana whom i contacted through her web site. (also my digital photos were used. there was no credit, though.) my main focus, decided by my client, casa brutus, was philippe stark’s new design hotel, faena, in puerto madeiro, a redeveloping area. the feature covered from classic and modern to contemporary buenos aires. its topics varied from old and new architecture to trendy spots in palermo.

featuring beautiful architecture such as puente de la mujer, the sculptural bridge designed by the prominent architect, santiago calatrava, seemed impeccable, but the feature needed to contain some interesting story to tell. it was sheer chance that i got a contact of the legenary argentine architect, clorindo testa. i managed to arrange an interview with him. testa is famous for his brutalist buildings (rough concrete & exposing pipes and ducts) but less known than other argentine architects such as cesar pelli and rafael viñoly. he has certain admirers in japan, though. before my interview, i and ioana went down to la plata, 50 km away from the city centre, to do a shoot on casa curutchet, designed by the pioneer of brutalism, le corbusier.


corbu’s house was not particularly well-preserved, however, looked pretty cool. although i like his architecture, i’m not fond of his personality. he was among my heroes when i was an art college student, but once i found that he painted (graffiti) eileen gray’s house without asking her out of petty jealousy about her talent and popularity and the anecdote turned me off. apparently, he was not a big-hearted jolly chap. actually, corbu was clorindo testa’s inspiration. he was also an artist and so is clorindo. in comparison, clorindo is wonderfully bounteous. his smile tells so. i visited him in his office+studio+home on avenida santa fe (just 5 minute-drive from my apartment) after the shoot in la plata.


my interview with the great and, personality-wise, incredibly modest architect gave me such pleasure. clorindo never sounded like he, anchoring himself to his desk chair, was interested in fame or lucrative projects at all. as i asked him some question, he answered it drawing something on his sketch pad with a felt-tip pen, for instance a dinosaur that he personally associated with his work, biblioteca nacional. and porteños love it. we were going to do a shoot there, anyway. to avoid our possible bureaucratic hassle, he kindly wrote a letter to its director, seeking permission to take photos inside the library for ioana and me. that sort of procedure could take weeks or even months.


summer day light in buenos aires is too bright to take photos. so ioana suggested finishing our shoot for the library’s exterior before the sun rose too high. she woke me up at 5:10 am the following morning to get there. the sun was not up yet, we were too early to take photos, however. it was ok. waiting was part of my work, really. ioana tried her best to be helpful, but we both got exhausted from our own kind of perfectionism. all in all, our shoots including banco de londres came off ok. ioana left buenos aires for a long summer break with her little daughter, while i carried on other shoots with javier. when he left me for a prestigious and well-paid job in urguay, pablo took it over from him. then, my 2-month porteña life was over.


i am prone to look back on those days in buenos aires sentimentally, maybe. but i know that, if i had been a plain tourist there, the south american city wouldn’t have stayed on my mind this way.

soul-searching november 9

i received the bad news first on wednesday. it was a sad day. i learned that the result on my brother’s medical tests was not as good at all as i’d hoped. when i talked to him on the phone, he was in good spirits as usual, though. he’s got to be ready for a long fight against cancer. my brother’s always a gentle soul, but i detected a bit of irritation in his voice. i know very well how he feels. he must be angry about himself having neglected to have check-ups even when he noticed some symptoms. maybe, all i can do now for him is care for him as his only sister.

on the previous night, an expat friend of mine phoned me from london. we had a long chat, exchanging gossips and updating information about our own lives. naturally, who’d be the next american president was among our topics. she said she didn’t want barack obama to be elected because his grandmother (step-grand mother to be precise), sisters and brothers (half-siblings) live in the slums of kenya and fellow african people’s high hopes would be big trouble for his future as president. -- how? i couldn’t help feeling sad as i heard her making such remarks. she was very generous friend of mine who was always there for me when i lived in london. but, yes, i remember our own world views were different.

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the good news followed the bad one, though. barack obama (a brief but pretty lengthy biography of him on the guardian here) was elected as the new american president. if i were a voter i’d unconditionally stand by him: mostly because he seems to be scrupulously fair with everyone and, unlike usual fat cats, he shows a great deal of respect even for those who disagree with him; partly because i’m interested in his mix-raced and multi-cultural background and, needless to say, he is one of black (half) americans who were born to fight for unreasonable discrimination even in this 21st century. his, and all the unprejudiced americans’ triumph pleased and relieved me no end.


at the same time, it worried me over his safety. i already begun to fear that he should be the highest-profiled target for some crazy white-supremacists, as i watched the video of his impressive victory speech on the election night in chicago. anyway, he stood still before the sea of his ecstatic supporters, including emotional jesse jackson with tears in his eyes. barack obama’s inner equilibrium was incredible. it was the most beautiful and moving speech i’ve ever heard in my life. directly or indirectly, we all did share his victory. the scene of his speech became “a night to remember” for us. i was glued to the video on my pc for some 17 minutes. i was touched. i played it over and over again. what a historic night!

when barack obama visited berlin in july, he was cordially welcomed by berliners and 200,000 people turned up to hear his speech in tiergarten. and i noticed that in his victory speech he quoted the fall of the berlin wall. that was certainly a night to remember, too. on the 9th of november, 1989, when the wall came down, i was in london with my little kids. we were watching live tv news captured the euphoria of all berliners. then, the tension of the cold war faded out. meanwhile, my family eventually fell apart and my life, going back and forth between london and tokyo, changed a lot. and 10 years later, i was alone in berlin. i was there to share and celebrate the 10th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall with berliners.

why? because i was a simpleton, like those local residents of a japanese city, obama 小浜 (means “tiny beach”) of which pronunciation happens to be the same as american president-elect, who gatherd to celebrate his victory with hula dance (what a joke!). in early september, 1999, i flew to berlin from tokyo and for 3 months i lodged with marianne, who was a costume designer, in her spacious apartment near savignyplatz, belonging to the posh neighbourhood. to tell you the truth, celebrating the anniversary was a pretext for my berlin trip. although i genuinely had sentiment towards the fall of the berlin wall, i wanted to leave tokyo, or rather, just wanted to change my spiritless tokyo life, feeling that everything i did came to naught.

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in berlin, marianne’s apartment was full of inspirations. i roamed around the city day after day. i loved galleries in mitte. i loved tiergarten. i loved taking #129 buses and s-bahn between savignyplatz and hackescher markt. i truly loved berlin. i met new people. i went to see exhibitions, operas and concerts with them or alone as much as i could afford. before flying back to tokyo, my sentimental journey was supposed to culminate with the special night of november 9th. actually, it was a bit of disappointment – i was there only to find berliners’ indifference to the celebration. they had to deal with reality first. the whole city stayed normal, except for the people hired to work for the celebration, well, for celebration’s sake.

marienne didn’t even mention the berlin wall that day. one of americans i met at the goethe insititute, pete, who lamented over his country’s unpopularity among germans (already in 1999!), flew home before the anniversary. it was drizzling but unseasonably a mild night. i went out alone to see what was happening at the brandenburg gate. when i got there, the celebration was officially over and the crowds already started to disperse. berlin’s symbol of freedom looked a little fragile in the misty rain. what a night... i’d never imagined the 10th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall would turn out like that. but yet, no matter how things went, no matter what my motivation was, berlin provided me time and space for soul-searching. i needed to look back at my past 10 years in order to see where i was standing and where i was going.

19 years passed. the world has become more complicated than ever since the berlin wall came down. i really hope barack obama’s new america will regain its popularity from the rest of the world. and 9 years have raced by since i bade good bye to berlin. i’m reflecting on my personal life -- how many times have i started over since then? did i go wrong somewhere? are my children happy about me now? is my mother contented with her life much involving me? and, oh, my brother, when he came here last week for his cancer confession to make, did he expect me to cry? (i didn’t, in front of him) – november 9th has become, somehow, a day to search soul and heart for me.

wow. i's so nice to find your comments on my last post. thank you so much for kind words, which mean a lot to me. my brother is as strong as me ;) i'm sure he will win his fight!