Tokyo flee markets

 

 

There are numerous flee markets in Tokyo that range from your local "car boot sale" type to more sophisticated antique markets.
Here are a few links to follow if you enjoy wondering around open air markets on a sunny day ...

Ginza and Tokyo Station area : Oedo Antique Market

A list of pottery markets around Tokyo and its region : Antique Pottery Market - Kanto

Japan National Tourism Organisation list

Tokyo Yokohama Information

Itsuki no komoriuta 五木の子守歌, a Japanese lullaby

The most common version :

おどま盆ぎり盆ぎり / Odoma bon giri bon giri
盆から先きゃおらんと / Bon kara sakya oran to
盆が早よくりゃ早よもどる / Bon ga hayoku rya hayo modoru

おどま勧進勧進 / Odoma kanjin kanjin
あん人たちゃよか衆 / An hito tachya yoka shû
よか衆ゃよか帯　よか着物 / Yoka shû yoka obi yoka kimono

to continue with the same tune ....

おどんがうっ死んだちゅうて
誰が泣てくりゅうか
うらの松山蝉が鳴く

おどんがうっ死んだら
道ばちゃいけろ
通る人ごち花あぎゅう

花はなんの花
つんつん椿
水は天からもらい水

The original version :

おどまいやいや
泣く子の守りにゃ
泣くといわれて憎まれる
泣くといわれて憎まれる

ねんねした子の
かわいさむぞさ
起きて泣く子の面憎さ
起きて泣く子の面憎さ

ねんねいっぺんゆうて
眠らぬ奴は
頭たたいて尻ねずむ
頭たたいて尻ねずむ

おどまお父つぁんな
あの山おらす
おらすともえば行こごたる
おらすともえば行こごたる

Keisuke Serizawa (芹沢 銈介) - Master of Japanese Folk Art and Crafts

Serizawa Keisuke was born on May 13, 1895 in Shizuoka City, the second son of a draper, Oishi Kakujiro. After graduating from Shizuoka Middle School, he entered Tokyo Higher Technical School (presently Tokyo Institute of Technology) and studied design. After graduation, he returned to Shizuoka. At the age of 22, in 1917, he married Serizawa Tayo and changed his family name to Serizawa.
　He taught industrial design at the Shizuoka Technical Laboratory and Shizuoka Industrial High School. But two factors made him decide to become a dyeing artist. First, he discovered the existence of the craft in an essay by Yanagi Muneyoshi, the leader of the “Mingei Movement” and who later taught Serizawa throughout his life. The second factor was the chance to see the characteristic “Bingata” dyeing technique from the Okinawa District, Where he was deeply attracted by its beauty.
　In 1929, he sent his first work “Shakushinamon Kabekake”(wall drape) to the Kokugakai Exhibition and won the Kokugakai Prize. He was also admitted as a member of this group for his remarkable creative activity. In 1934, he and his family moved to Kamata, Tokyo, at the suggestion of Yanagi and he began dyeing full-time.
　He went several times to Okinawa after 1939 to study “Bingata.” He improved on Bingata and other dyeing techniques by using “Katagami (stencil paper).” His new technique was called “Kataezome.” He sent many his “Kataezome” works throughout the world.
　Late in his life he won great popularity with the many personal exhibitions held in Japan and abroad. The 1976 exhibition “Serizawa” at the Grand Palais in Paris firmly established his fame above all.

Source : Shizuoka City Serizawa Keisuke Museum
Other links :  
Tohoku Fukushi Daigaku
Mingei Kan (Japanese Folk Art and Crafts Museum)

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.

Read more ...

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.

...

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.

Read more ...

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.

read more ...

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

Jōmon 縄文 - Dogū 土偶

Some of the most fascinating pottery ever made in Japan dates back to the Jomon period (about 10,000 BC to 300 BC). The open-pit fired large vessels had the most amazing decorative features and continue to inspire potters today, most notably the late Okabe Mineo, Mashiko's Shimaoka Tatsuzo, and Bizen's "kiln god" Mori Togaku.

In 1990, the Shigaraki Ceramic Park Museum hosted an exhibition entitled Primitivism in Contemporary Ceramics highlighting many Jomon works and how they relate to what's happening now. The grand flowing traditions of Japanese ceramic art thrive today due to the living presence and inspiration that past works impart. There is no now without the past and there is no future without the now.

Some of the most intriguing works from the Jomon period are clay figurines called dogu. There are many theories on what they were used for with the main agreement being they were a talisman for good health or safe childbirth. As many were excavated in fragments, it's believed that after the wish was fulfilled, or not, the dogu was broken and thrown on the trash heap; that's where many were discovered. Another theory is that these were goddesses to whom Jomon people prayed to for food and health. Other explanations are toys for children, funerary offerings, or objects used in some unknown ritual. And, of course, there are those who believe they were aliens from outer space. Yet, if you look at similar primitive artifacts from around the world (the Valdivia culture of Ecuador, for example) there is a certain resemblance that can't be explained in logical terms. It might have been part of the collective consciousness of the times though, or did earth in fact have space-suited visitors from a distant galaxy? This dogu sure seems to fit the match! 

Dogu were found all over Japan with northern Japan, the Tohoku region, yielding the most variety. Dogu first appeared in early Jomon but began to flourish in Middle Jomon through Late Jomon. (For a timeline outlining the development of Japanese pottery, please click here.) Many of them have the distinctive Jomon rope-cord patterns while others have been intricately carved with arabesque-like designs. Some in outer-space garb are known as the "goggles type" and no explanation is needed for that naming. Whatever the markings, they are all eerily moving and can't help but spark one's imagination in wondering about life so many thousand of years ago, and the miracle it is today.

As Joseph Campbell once wrote: "Take, for example, a pencil, ashtray, anything, and holding it before you in both hands (in this case looking at dogu), regard it for awhile. Forgetting its name and use, yet continuing to regard it, ask yourself seriously, What is it? Its dimension of wonder opens, for the mystery of the being of that thing is identical with the mystery of the being of the universe, and yourself."

Source : Japanese Pottery Information center
Link : Wikipedia

Future Beauty - 30 years of Japanese Fashion 2012.7.28 - 2012.10.8

Link : Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art

STUDIO MUMBAI at TOTO Gallery・MA 2012.7.12 - 2012.9.22

In the next event at TOTO GALLERY・MA, the specialty architecture and design gallery operated by the TOTO Ltd. , we present STUDIO MUMBAI: PRAXIS, an exhibition which focuses on STUDIO MUMBAI, the firm overseen by one of India’s foremost contemporary architects, Bijoy Jain.

After studying architecture at university in India using the traditional educational technique centering on the teachings of a single professor (or “guru”), Jain moved to the U.S. to study Western architectural theory. Then, after getting practical experience in firms in both the U.S. and the U.K., he established STUDIO MUMBAI in his hometown of Mumbai, and began his career as a full-fledged architect. Making use of traditional techniques that have been handed down from generation to generation in India, and incorporating the cultural climate of the area, Jain has continued to make works that are notable for their rich qualities and spatiality.

The work of STUDIO MUMBAI is distinguished by the fact that the entire process from preparing the lot to the design and construction of the building are carried out manually by a network of architects and skilled craftsmen. The studio’s workshop is staffed by approximately 120 highly capable, resident artisans (carpenters, stone-masons, ironsmiths, metal workers, and well-sinkers among them) from various regions of India who, under Jain’s direction, analyze topographic and climatic conditions, dig wells to ensure a source of water, and create architecture using locally-derived materials and construction methods.

The reliable technical prowess of these artisans, who possess a variety of traditional knowhow passed down to them orally from their ancestors, is indispensable in building structures that can withstand the relentless conditions of violent heat in the dry season and monsoons in the rainy season. Based on their wisdom and skill, the architecture that emerges under Jain’s deeply considered direction promises its users a comfortable life in the area and at the same time contains an abundance of poetic sentiment that harmonizes with the landscape.

Moreover, Jain furnishes the artisans with sketchbooks and provides them with drawing lessons. In effect, the workers who, never having received a formal education are fundamentally illiterate, study how to “design” a building as they continue their work every day. While serving as the architectural head of STUDIO MUMBAI, Jain is also the leader of an extraordinarily skilled group of people, and is both a noted director who drives their talents, and an educator who teaches through his buildings.

Through his relationships with researchers and architects throughout the world, Jain assimilates the latest knowledge and ideas. And by staying abreast of the current conditions in India through his research in various Indian cities, and continually engaging in dialogues with his craftsmen and partners, he maneuvers a diverse range of skills and techniques in the right direction in order to realize a genuine work of architecture backed by a clear philosophy.

According to Jain, the title of this exhibition, PRAXIS, signifies a human approach to a specific practice, nature or society, and as a word that corresponds to the abstract notion of “theory,” suggests the process that stretches from “idea” to “practice.” In light of the fact that STUDIO MUMBAI is an open-door community populated by those with a desire to creature architecture as they move back and forth between a variety of ideas and practices to attain the optimal goal, the word is also suggestive of the firm’s work and existence as a whole.

In this exhibition, materials, models, sketches, and mockups that were actually used at STUDIO MUMBAI will be transported from India and reconstructed in Japan’s capital in a presentation called “STUDIO MUMBAI in Tokyo.” Visitors will have an opportunity to experience the air, light, and sound of STUDIO MUMBAI with all of their senses, and experience the world that Jain has realized while enjoying documentary information on the entire journey of Praxis.

TOTO GALLERY・MA

 

Link : TOTO gallery - MA Studio

Suna no onna 砂の女 (La femme des sables), Techigahara Hiroxhi, 1964

The Woman in the Dunes (砂の女 Suna no onna, literally "Sand woman," also translated as The Woman of the Dunes) is a film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara and released in 1964. The screenplay for the film was adapted by Kōbō Abe from his 1962 novel of the same name.

An entomologist, Junpei Niki (played in the film by Eiji Okada), is on an expedition to collect insects which inhabit sand dunes. When he misses the last bus, villagers suggest he stay the night. They guide him down a rope ladder to a house in a sand quarry where a young widow (Kyoko Kishida) lives alone. She is employed by the villagers to dig sand for sale and to save the house from burial in the advancing sand.
When Junpei tries to leave the next morning, he finds the ladder removed. The villagers inform him that he must help the widow in her endless task of digging sand. Junpei initially tries to escape; upon failing he takes the widow captive but is forced to release her in order to receive water from the villagers.
Junpei becomes the widow's lover. However, he still desperately wants to leave. One morning, he escapes from the sand dune and starts running while being chased by the villagers. Junpei is not familiar with the geography of the area and eventually gets trapped in some quicksand. The villagers free him from the quicksand and then return him back to the widow.
Eventually, Junpei resigns himself to his fate. Through his persistent effort to trap a crow as a messenger, he discovers a way to draw water from the damp sand at night. He thus becomes absorbed in the task of perfecting his technology and adapts to his "trapped" life. The focus of the film shifts to the way in which the couple cope with the oppressiveness of their condition and the power of their physical attraction in spite of — or possibly because of — their situation.
At the end of the film Junpei gets his chance to escape, but he chooses to prolong his stay in the dune. A report after seven years declaring him missing is then shown hanging from a wall, written by the police and signed by his mother Shino.

Eiji Okada – Entomologist Niki Junpei
Kyōko Kishida – Woman
Hiroko Ito – Entomologist's wife (in flashbacks)
Koji Mitsui
Sen Yano
Kinzo Sekiguchi

Source : Wikipedia

Bingata: Colors and Shapes of the Ryukyu Dynasty 2012.6.13 - 2012.7.22

SUNTORY MUSEUM OF ART / BINGATA:

Colors and shapes of the ryukyu dynasty commemorating the 40th anniversary of the reversion of Okinawa to Japan.

Bingata is a textile dyed with a technique created in Okinawa for clothing used by specific classes of Ryukyu-society, including royal and Shizoku families. The assortment of shapes created using paper patterns combines with unique Ryukyu colors to demonstrate the delightful capabilities of katazome (stencil dyeing). This exhibition presents superb examples of bingata, including some of the finest bingata dress made for the Ryukyu royal family, and also has the first public showing of the Matsuzakaya collection.

 

link: The Suntory Museum Tokyo