Posted in technology, architecture, travel and places, museums, kyoto on Apr 25th, 2007 No Comments »
Kyoto is often seen as purely a historical city for tourists. Indeed, when you sit in a quiet Zen garden you tend to forget that it is also a hothouse of advanced research and industry.
That was already so in the past. In the last 30 years of the 19th century, after the capital was transferred […]
Posted in life, architecture, art and photography, business, news on Apr 20th, 2007 No Comments »
With sadness we note the passing of Clifton Karhu on March 24 at age 79, the great American-born blockprint artist who made Kyoto his home. Karhu’s prints are known for their strong lines and vivid colors and his themes pay tribute to the beauty of Japan’s old capital. Norman Tolman, founder of the Tolman Collection […]
Posted in architecture, art and photography, museums, news on Mar 28th, 2007 No Comments »
Ai-mitsu is one of the most tortured (and fascinating) Japanese painters from the middle of the last century - he died in China during the war. He is undeservedly unknown outside of Japan, so the Ai-Mitsu Exhibition starting March 30 in the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and lasting until May 27, is a […]
Posted in books, culture, architecture, anime, museums, kyoto on Feb 23rd, 2007 No Comments »
The Kyoto International Manga Museum rides the high tide of interest in Japanese popular culture, and is housed in a beautiful old school building, but curious visitors will not find much to see inside. Unless you want to observe how blissfully quiet kids can become when they sit reading manga books…
The walls of the long […]
Posted in culture, architecture, kyoto on Dec 30th, 2006 No Comments »
This hairdresser in the Gion area of Kyoto has dressed out her modern hairsalon with a traditional inuyarai, a screen of bamboo strips to protect the lower part of buildings from fouling by animals or people. Somehow, it does not fit… on the other hand, this is something you could only come across in Kyoto!
Posted in architecture, travel and places, museums on Dec 4th, 2006 No Comments »
There is not much to see in literature museums, but in the case of the Kamakura Museum of Literature you come for the great house and spacious garden. A Western-style villa right in the middle of the old warrior capital! The art deco manor was built in 1936 by the Maeda family, who had been […]
Posted in life, architecture, kyoto on Nov 29th, 2006 No Comments »
As a “Kyotophile” I am glad to read in the Asahi that the Kyoto city government has decided to tighten building rules. For parts of central Kyoto this is already too late, but prevention of further damage is welcome. The proposed new rules:
Building height for new buildings will go down from 45 to 31 meters.
Flashing […]
Posted in architecture, art and photography, museums on Nov 14th, 2006 2 Comments »
Traditional Japanese houses, or minka, are something I am very fond of. My dream is to live in one in the future! For now, I have to do with open-air museums, and that is not so bad, as there are beautiful traditional houses in parks like the Japan Open-Air Folk-house Museum in Kawasaki, the Shikoku […]
Posted in architecture, intercultural on Oct 25th, 2006 No Comments »
What is the largest building in Tokyo? You never would guess: the Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway! This concrete monster on heavy pillars is now about 280 kilometers long and crawls like a mighty dinosaur through the metropolis. It runs along the third or fourth story of buildings, stamps on high legs through Tokyo’s pityful canals, splits […]
Posted in Japan, architecture, museums on Aug 13th, 2006 No Comments »
The Himeji Museum of Literature is a case of a Japanese museum where the building is much more impressive than what it contains. But as that building is one of the masterpieces of modern architect Ando Tadao, it certainly is worth a visit, if only for the architecture. There are many literature museums in Japan […]
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