Akihabara Street Corner

Just a snapshot of one of my favroite street corners of Tokyo, in the trendy anime haven of Akihabara.

Sprite Vending Machine – Akihabara

Passing through Akihabara the other day I noticed this vending machine that only sells Sprite, nicely decorated with images from the Aokana TV anime. At first I wondered wether this actually drives sales for either Sprite or Aokana and then I remembered that I had just taken four images of it. So yes, I assume it does at least attract attention!

Tamashii Nations – Plastic Models Collection 2014

Passing through Akihabara the other day I saw the TAMASHII NATIONS summer collection 2014 (魂の夏コレ2014) show of their new plastic model kits and toys. It is interesting how they have picked the game of plastic models up and moved it in the direction of fashion with different season collections and such. I have seen some of these models posted on different speciality blogs (like John Struan’s “Super Punch“) so I recognized most of these new designs. The winner must be the town wrecking Tower of the Sun, the famous statue by Taro Okamoto, very cool. The collection was also quite well presented, more so than usual (and I have seen dozens of this kind of exhibitions), I think this might be the beginning of a new trend.

As a kid I grew up building model aircraft, I wonder what my life would have been like if I had models like these to play with?

Manseibashi and Akihabara at Night

One of my favorite places in Tokyo was always the Manseibashi Station platform that spent a large chunk of both the last and this century in slumber – one of Tokyo’s few remaining ghost stations. Last year however it was finally revived with a great looking shopping arcade, balcony overlooking a canal and a fantastic cafe up on top between the tracks of the central Chuou Line train. I blogged about it last year after the renovation was complete and I still love going here every now and then, although I am not the only one – that cafe I mentioned earlier actually sells out of food most nights! Last time I went there they said the only thing we have left is black coffee, so if you go, go early!

A few days ago I passed the station just after the sun had set and the last light of the day was almost gone. The old platform looks even better at night. There is something special about red bricks that you just can’t translate into concrete. They feel alive, and their strength and longevity means that they can last for hundreds of years, accumulating raw history – the wrinkles and spotches of red bricks in old Tokyo buildings have everything from bomb shrapnel holes to modern signs. The special look and feel of red brick, or akarenga, as they are known in Japan, gets even further enhanced because there are so few of them. Red brick walls are incredibly difficult to earthquake proof and even the ancient romans solved the problem by adding copious amounts of reinforced concrete to the core of their brick structures (I am sure the Manseibashi platform also has a concrete heart but at least the cladding is the original red bricks). In fact the first architect to finally solve the problem of building with red brick walls in earthquake countries was Josiah Conder (1852-1920) by using reinforced metal bands embedded in the mortar between the bricks, effectively tying the walls together. You can see an example of this in the fantastic Mitsubishi Ichigokan building in Tokyo’s Marunouchi district. The Manseibashi station platform building is a perfect example of a building that is valuable, lovable and useful, so much that it survived Earthquakes, bombing raids, urban development and modernist architectural fads. It is not a mere space to which people adapt but an organically and historically evolved living building. I am sure it will be around for the future generations to come many centuries from now.

As a contrast, the last photo shows the totally utalitarian and disposable modern Akihabara on the other side of the canal, that represents a different form of beauty, where the brutalist architecture of concrete were unable to withstand the pure commercial and creative onslaught of unabashed humanity. You can see the signs of human activity literally crowding out every inch of ugly bare concrete helplessly drowned in a sea of humanity.

Sorry for this public love letter to a city – I just had to get it out!