past impression

Today we were going to the 1964 Olympic park, in the greater Yoyogi park. It was full of people doing park activities, running, practicing sports, martial arts, hanging out. Getting off at the Harajuku station which full of girls dressed up like farmhouse dolls, we got to the Yoyogi National Gymnasium entry gates. The entire space was deserted. This "public" building was inaccessible, all the doors were locked and no security guards were stationed. The building looked like it hadn't been used in a very, very long time. Rust stains flowed down the wall sheathing, the windows were caked in dirt. Only by navigating through the underground labyrinth of tunnels to talk to the property manager were we allowed access to the gymnasium.

The interior of the main gym space was a reflection of the exterior shape, with the large cables suspended between two large columns on either end of the gym floor. The roof structure was draped from the cables to the perimeter walls. The space was impressive, and as we talked to each other and to our reluctant security guard the echoes sounded small in the massive space. Windows lined the top of the walls, above the rows and rows of stadium seating. All the curtains were drawn, and the only light provided was from the few remaining overhead lights over the wooden gym floor.

We cautiously spread out taking photos. I wandered away from the main floor in an effort to get a glimpse of the seating structure from below. I followed a corridor running parallel to the long edge of the main floor, the old florescent lights reflecting dimly on the painted concrete floor. I moved with the structure for about 5 minutes, then realize that I had gotten myself back into the underground corridor system. Everything was unfamiliar, I could not hear the voices of the rest of the group and I didn't know the way back to the main floor. I continued onward, hoping to find a window or any exit signs to get my barrings back. The halls were lit only with emergency lights, all the windows were blocked and doors shut. Restrooms I passed clearly hadn't been used in some time, with rust and lime stains in the sinks and toilets. From what I remembered of the building plan, I knew that these corridors must connect in some way with the swimming pool and administration offices. But in the dim light I couldn't see what was at the end of the halls, and the signs were all in Kanji. Trying to keep my calm, I just kept walking past the rhythm of doorways and water fountains until finally reaching a glass door that was unlocked. I stepped out into the brightest sun, only to realize that I was in a courtyard, surrounded by azalea bushes. I had no idea where the rest of the group was but could see a footbridge running along one edge of the bushes. I pushed, fought my way through up to the stone path. I couldn't figure out which end of the building we had entered in originally, the structural system looked identical on either end. I just decided to keep walking, over and over again what looked like the same path. Finally, I see Catie waving to me from the other side of the building. I was saved.

air; water; FIRE

Today, we studied the history of fire damage in Edo Tokyo. The head researcher of the Tokyo University of Science gave us a condensed summary of the fire facts. Interestingly, we discovered that the fire that spread through and leveled Edo Tokyo was caused by a woman named Oshichi, a woman who fell madly in love with a man she met during a tragic fire. In her desperation to meet him again, she deliberately caused the Edo Tokyo fire, for which she was put to death.

After the power-point lecture, Professor Researcher took us on a tour of the places he briefly introduced in the lecture slides. Among these was the Daienji Temple. This was supposedly the location of where Oshichi started her fire. To demonstrate how quickly fire can spread through the dense, wood-constructed buildings of Tokyo’s neighborhoods, Professor Researcher set up a series of wooden bundles to show a controlled fire damage simulation. Unfortunately, the controlled simulation became a out-of-control situation and we leveled all of Tokyo…so we are relaying our fugitive situation via the back alley behind an Internet café right now.



…OK, so I’m a terrible liar; I can’t stand this dishonesty, even if it’s just a story. We didn’t really re-level Tokyo, but we did witness some arson in action today. It happened at Enijiyouji Temple, one of our stops on our tour route with Professor Researcher. The temple was famous because it is the setting for Ihara Saikaku’s popular novel, Koshoku-gonin-onna, and also because it contained the tomb of Oshichi there. As we started to take some photos, a small group of people wearing traditional mourning attire and painted face masks slowly approached. To respect their wishes to pay their respects, we retreated a short distance from the site so Professor Researcher could tell us more about Oshichi’s tomb while we waited for our turn.

Unfortunately, we never got our turn. We heard a small explosion from where the "funerary mourners" had been and all turned toward the source to see the arsonists running away and flames quickly licking up the wooden frame of the temple. The professor and his assistant starting yelling rapidly in Japanese, which none of us understood. As our class tried to figure out how to dial for the fire department on Catie’s cell phone, many Japanese people from surrounding apartments and houses in the area began running and gathering at the fire site, which was still accelerating into a small inferno. One of the neighbors had a small gardening hose; it couldn’t reach far enough to put out the fire, but it was enough to prevent the fire from spreading further from the temple. When the firemen did arrive (no thanks to us, by the way: another Japanese neighbor successfully made the phone call while we fumbled in our Japanese-English dictionaries), they were able to successfully put out the fire, but the temple was already in charred ruins.

At this point, the professor apologetically told us that he would have to discontinue our tour; the police would be arriving soon to discuss the cause of this fire and not only did he not want us to get unnecessarily involved, but our inability to speak fluent Japanese would render us useless anyway. Regrettably, we realized that this was true, although we did want to help (and find out more about the situation), and decided to walk and talk instead. Even though the loss of such a culturally-important temple is saddening, at least it didn’t become a tragedy like the Edo Tokyo fire. Besides, the city of Tokyo is founded on a constant cycle of periodic re-leveling and reconstruction…and it does seem ironically fitting that the tomb of Oshichi the arsonist would become a victim of arson itself. It also makes for an interesting story to accompany the next-built Enijiyouji Temple.

Out of Water

After a few hours of sleep and a five in the morning departure, we find ourselves in the center of Tokyo's fish market.

As we are told that everything here is "fresh" and we need not worry about getting ill, my eyes wander about the market and fixate on a Japanese man chain smoking five inches above a four foot long slab of raw tuna lying on the bloody concrete floor- half his cigarette is ash, waiting to fall but does not.

Small motorized carts, essentially comprised of what looks like a vertical keg for a steering wheel and a six foot long flat bed in back, roar past us from any given direction and at any given speed. There are no lights, no signs. They seem to be going back and forth between delivery and packaging, from the market to the trucks respectively. Each one appears to be on its own personal collision course, destined to to be totaled, and yet neither a fender is scraped, nor a frustrated remark shouted; this is not a job for a NYC cab driver. At times a cart hurries by and it is carrying very little on its bed and I understand that much of this work is simply keeping things moving.

Streets and alleys start to form as a result of the traffic caused by both carts and pedestrians. They form around fish vendors in the market place and a haphazard grid forms throughout the market; this is a walking street, this is a delivery street. Every morning this system is a phoenix rising from the ashes, a burning man on acid. The tall dark awning covering the vendors, people dodging high speed carts, blood red octopus tentacles overflowing cardboard boxes, a barrel of slowly suffocating eels squirming, live fish being tossed from tank to tank waiting to hear their final sentence, a crab already breaded but crawling around before it is packaged alive, all of these images scream death and yet this place is unmistakeably very much alive.

Chefs carry large bamboo baskets and rush past me in the narrow alleys between vendors, hurrying to "their guy" in an attempt to get a good deal. Large decapitated fish heads conglomerate in the middle of the streets, while their human sized bodies are descaled and hacked up using an archaic form of what appears to be a table saw. I think it is odd that their are no birds around picking up the scraps. Where are they? Where am I?

Unlike the birds, my curiosity got the better of me. I did not stay away. I decided that I'd better try something while I'm here. I swallowed the blood coated squid, feeling it feeling the inside of my mouth and throat. I should have been a bird, I should have stayed on my plane and up in the air. I vomited immediately, before the squid reached my stomach, and watched helplessly as the mess landed in the carton of squid from which it had originated. "I'll take the whole thing, please."

It was late in the morning and the trucks started to disappear, the vendors pack up. Soon nothing would be left of this city; only a bitter taste in my mouth and a bag full of squid. I think I'll feed the birds.

fly over

What starts as a morning in Detroit, ends as a late night in Tokyo. Seems like a simple enough task for those used to a skewed definition of a single day through the hours of an architecture school. However, this excursion adds the jump in time zones and the chasing of the sun.

Most all of us were in separate capsules, doing are best to race across to the other side of the world. Confined to tiny spaces we had nothing to do but over analyze are space and get to know our neighbors as activators of this limited zone. Truly limited in our own movements and frustrated that the sun never went down, what was lost in space was cut through all the time in the world. Somehow the 2 do not align.

Down below we were drawing huge lines on the earth. Connected from one point to the next. Our touches on the ground were light. Occasionally we'd cast a shadow, and then we'd run off to a new day.

For architecture this means a space like none other. It means a time that never finds itself, and a sun that never sets. It means we went somewhere for 19hours, but the clock says it was 32. We're researching this hoax.

Where to now?