Dōjunkai apartments 同潤会アパート, Tokyo

Dōjunkai (shinjitai: 同潤会, kyūjitai: 同潤會) was a corporation set up a year after the 1923 Kantō earthquake to provide reinforced concrete (and thus earthquake- and fire-resistant) collective housing in the Tokyo area. Its formal name was Zaidan-hōjin Dōjunkai (財団法人同潤会), i.e. the Dōjunkai corporation. The suffix kai means organization, and dōjun was a term coined to suggest the spread of the nutritious benefit of the water of river and sea. It was overseen by the Home Ministry.
The corporation was in existence from 1924 through 1941; it was involved in construction between 1926 and 1934, primarily 1926–30, building 16 complexes. As of 2012, only one complex remains; it is mostly unoccupied, and expected to be demolished when the remaining residents accept buyouts from developers.

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Source :  Wikipedia

Resident of last Dōjunkai laments passing of '20s icons

By EDAN CORKILL

"One of the members of the residents association once told me that we shouldn't talk to journalists, but I have nothing to lose now."

Helmut Rudolph was sitting on a low couch, surveying the interior of his tiny, 20-sq.-meter apartment. It seemed as though the lanky self-described German-New Zealander could reach out and touch the walls on all sides.

Despite these modest circumstances — and that warning about members of the fourth estate — Rudolph had invited The Japan Times to view his abode because it is in the last remaining example of a series of residential buildings that were once the pride of Japan's architectural fraternity: the Dojunkai apartments.

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Consequently, the Dojunkai apartments — named after the public entity responsible for their construction — were made to last. They tended to be no more than four or five stories high, and comprised of "family-size" apartments like the one Rudolph rents — and, astonishing by today's standards, even smaller single-person units on the top floors.

The blocks were all of steel-and-concrete construction, and were often designed as quadrangles around a central courtyard or in U-shaped formations that gave them increased resistance to lateral shaking from earthquakes.

Yet, although the 15 buildings survived subsequent natural and man-made disasters (including the carpet- and fire-bombing during World War II), they have over the last few decades proved no match for a far more tenacious phenomenon: the economics of property development.

The most famous Dojunkai building of them all was located in Tokyo's swish central Shibuya Ward, where it once presented its low-rise, ivy-covered facade to a long stretch of leafy Omotesando boulevard. However, that iconic structure was demolished in 2003 to make way for a mega-development in the shape of Mori Building's Omotesando Hills.

By then, though, many of the other Dojunkai apartments had already succumbed to wrecking balls and, come 2009, the second-last of them — in the Nippori district of Tokyo's eastern Arakawa Ward — was leveled to make way for a high-rise apartment block.

And then there was one.

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Source : The Japan Times Online

Other source : Death of the Dojunkai apartments

Love Tsumori Chisato

Born in the city of Saitama, Japan, Tsumori Chisato studied fashion at the prestigious Bunka Fashion School in Tokyo. In 1977, she entered the Issey Miyake design company as the head designer for “Issey Sports”, later renamed “I.S. Chisato Tsumori Design”. With this solid apprenticeship under her belt and at the encouragement of Mr. Miyake himself, Tsumori Chisato started her own line in 1990, a collection that made its catwalk debut in Tokyo at the Japan Fashion Week that same year.
Tsumori Chisato’s signature style was soon celebrated with her innovative and luxurious textiles, intricate beading, embroidery, appliqués and prints of her own design. Graceful, elegant and fun at the same time, Tsumori Chisato’s work has been greatly appreciated over the years. The prestigious “Maïnichi Newspaper Award” is just one of numerous prizes she has received in recognition of her design achievements.
Having always been proudly international at heart, with a particular penchant for all things French, she chose Paris as the destination for her first free-standing shop outside Asia.
The Christian Biecher designed boutique opened on rue Barbette in 1999. Situated in the heart of the Marais neighbourhood, the boutique showcases Tsumori Chisato’s love for the arts through collaborations with photographers, visual artists and set designers exhibited in the storefront. Her artistic sensibility is also translated throught the brand’s inventive advertising campaigns.
In 2003, Tsumori Chisato launched her first menswear line and began showing her women’s collection during Paris Prêt-à-Porter Fashion Week.
This same year she also began international worldwide distribution. Today, Tsumori Chisato has over 40 sales points and numerous freestanding stores throughout Asia and the brand continues to expand steadily throughout the United States, Italy, Russia and Scandinavia.

Source : tsumorichisato.com

Le monde de Kazumasa Nagai 永井一正 (1929〜)

Kazumasa Nagai, who was born in 1929 in Osaka, Japan, is an multiple poster award-winner, whose works are exhibited in many museums of modern art, among others: at MoMa in New York and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. The artist creates until now. His style evolved from presenting abstract forms to organic ones, animals and plants have become a frequent topic. He is true to the traditional graphical techniques and animals presented on the posters often have symbolic meaning and refer to the tradition of Japanese art. Kasumasa Nagai gives his animals an original form, often simplified and composed into vibrant colors. This is how the posters fulfill its role, conveying a clear message.

Source : Japanese Design
Other sources :
Animalarium
The Powerhouse Museum
Rob Dunlavey
I desire vintage posters

Guchol Strikes Japan

Japan approves 2 reactor restarts, more seen ahead

The Asahi Shinbun, June 16, 2012.

Japan on June 16 approved the resumption of nuclear power operations at two reactors despite mass public opposition, the first to come back on line after they were all shut down following the Fukushima crisis.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, his popularity ratings sagging, had backed the restarts for some time. He announced the government's decision at a meeting with key ministers, giving the go-ahead to two reactors operated by Kansai Electric Power Co. at Oi in western Japan.
The decision, despite public concerns over safety after the big earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima plant, could open the door to more restarts among Japan's 50 nuclear power reactors.

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Eki-bento (Japanese train station bentos)

  

 From Tokyo to Kyoto with a "yasai tappuri bento" 野菜たっぷり弁当 ! Delicious.

Kikkoman's Soy Sauce Dispenser

Just 16 and recently released from a naval academy, Kenji Ekuan witnessed Hiroshima’s devastation from the train taking him home. “Faced with that nothingness, I felt a great nostalgia for human culture,” he recalled from the offices of G. K. Design, the firm he co-founded in Tokyo in 1952. “I needed something to touch, to look at,” he added. “Right then I decided to be a maker of things.”

One of the most enduring objects in his 60-year design career — which includes the Akita bullet train and Yamaha motorbikes — is the Kikkoman soy-sauce dispenser. Introduced in 1961, it has been in continuous production ever since. Traditional in its grace yet modern in its materials, the bottle’s design drew on Ekuan’s experiences at war’s end. The atomic blast killed his younger sister, and his father, a Buddhist priest, died of radiation-related illness a year later, prompting Ekuan to train briefly as a Buddhist monk in Kyoto.

But he quickly left that training behind, fascinated by the G.I.’s he saw roaming Japan’s ruins. In their jeeps and immaculately pressed gabardine trousers, they were like a “moving exhibition,” extolling the virtues of American invention. Ekuan pored over the newspaper cartoon “Blondie” for clues on American consumer culture. He enrolled at the National University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo, urging fellow students to give shape to a contemporary “Japanese lifestyle.”

It took three years for Ekuan and his team to arrive at the dispenser’s transparent teardrop shape. More than 100 prototypes were tested in the making of its innovative, dripless spout (based on a teapot’s, but inverted). The design proved to be an ideal ambassador. With its imperial red cap and industrial materials (glass and plastic), it helped timeless Japanese design values — elegance, simplicity and supreme functionality — infiltrate kitchens around the world.

More than 300 million dispensers have been sold, in more than 70 countries. In 2007, to mark its 50th year in the United States, Kikkoman issued a gold-capped version, and the company has also given souvenir bottles, bearing the image of Mickey Mouse, to groups of schoolchildren visiting the factory. But Ekuan’s original design persists.

“For me it represents not the new Japan, but the real Japan,” he says. “The shape is so gentle. Of course, during the war, we were forced into acting differently. But for a long time, some 1,000 years, the history of the Japanese people was very gentle.” 

By LESLIE CAMHI, June 15, 2012.

Source : The New York Times