Tokyo Big Sight, Odaiba

Mike GristArchitecture

Tokyo Big Sight in Odaiba is one of the biggest exhibition spaces in Tokyo, featuring two huge halls East and West plus several conference rooms and a 1,100 seater auditorium in the main building- which is curiously shaped out of four upside-down pyramids.

Why is it shaped out of four upside-down pyramids? Nobody knows. I suppose this is another case of function being completely unrelated to form, with form taking off on a flight of fancy to Never-Neverland. The last time we saw this was with the Edo-Tokyo museum, which got me ranting about WASTE! and VACUOUS DESIGN! and GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION!

But not this time. Tokyo Big Sight, meh. I dig it- no need to rant. It’s a conference space, the function is amorphous, let them eat cake!

Amorphous function equals inverted quadra-pyramidal form. Obvious.

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Weekly Links

Mike GristUncategorized

The Venus Project– Visionary site with lots of futurist ideas and art, underwater cities and cool designs.

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Draw Me a Sheep– Cool art/design site, featuring square trees.

Rassouli– Great aspirational art, I’ve used two now for story headers- Universal Time and Cullsman #9. It’s ostensibly Christian mythos art, but you wouldn’t know that to look at it.

The hotel one man dug out of solid rock #1 exterior

Mike GristCatacombs / Caves, Haikyo, Hotels / Resorts, Saitama

The Gan Kutsu Cliff Face Hotel in Saitama is the relic of a dream, one man’s vision to carve out a massive hotel in the sheer rock face, working alone with only a chisel for 21 years until the day he died in 1925. He finished several rooms, a grand staircase, the two main entrances, and several windows including a balcony; the work was completed after his death, with a false facade slapped in white brick over the entrance to make it more appealing. It was closed after about 60 years due to cave-ins, the false facade stripped away, and all ways in and out strapped with iron bars.

Main entrance, balcony, carved into solid rock by one man.

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Yoyogi’s Yukinko Akira

Mike GristHeaven Artists, Japan

Yukinko Akira is a funky beats-master artist, skinny and frantic and one heck of a showman. He performs regularly at the fountains in Yoyogi Park, his own unique brand of frenetic dance moves, dance beat remixes, and exhilarating yawps and whoops, all the while constructing some dystopic work of art which he signs, rolls up into a poster case, and hands out for free to one lucky spectator at the end, with a wry smile and very polite manner.

Then he pauses, re-frames, and rocks right out again. What a guy.

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Yukinko Akira puts a trance on you.

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The apocalypse seed vault on Svalbard island

Mike GristSvalbard, Vaults, World Ruins

The Global Seed Vault on Svalbard archipelago way up near the North Pole is not in Japan, nor have I ever been there. It is however a very cool post-apocalypse place, an insurance policy for the Earth and human-kind in the event of rampant global disease or massive nuclear fallout, and as such belongs on a site mostly about ruins as much as anything.

The entrance.

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Weekly Links

Mike GristUncategorized

TIME– Photos of the collapse of Detroit.

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NewsWeek– Headless in Tokyo- why are Japan’s leaders so weak?

NewsWeek– Learning to live with Radical Islam. -Fareed Zakaria.

Mike’s Blender– Mike’s take on Nichitsu ghost town.

TED– The haikyoist Miru Kim explores the ruins of NYC in the nude- here she talks about it at TED. She calls it ‘urban exploring’- the name more widely accepted for this activity. Not the name I give it normally- since my explorations are often not urban.

Silent car park of the demolished Sun Hills hotel

Mike GristHaikyo, Hotels / Resorts, Kanagawa

The remnants of the Sun Hills Hotel in Kanagawa lay hunkered down and spartan on the banks of Sagamiko lake, the blank concrete foundation of a proud edifice that never once opened to the public, hosting only the village’s truanting kids and vandals before it was unceremoniously torn down. Now just its 2-story underground car park remains, haunted by chirping crickets and families of hikers on sight-seeing breaks.

Sun Hills car park.

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Deathwatch

Mike GristScience Fiction, Stories

It’s a beautiful day already. The sun is up and dawning like a golden rip in the pewter and orange sky, leaking rays of light across the blue ocean and bridge.

Everything is still. It’s a beginning, the start of a new day. Strange thing is, everything that matters is already over. The man lies pinioned to the grindstone of the bridge, door heavy over his slack frame, I’m kneeling here beside him, and the kid has gone for coffee and bagels. We’re all ready, in our places, but there’s nothing left to wait for.

The salt sea breeze rubs over my face and hands, itchy and thick with the promise of humidity. I can feel the rising sun striping the back of my neck red.

Here comes the kid now. I can see his black and silvers cresting the walkway onto the bridge, bags in hand. It’s time. I stand up, holster my pistol, and return to my post.

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Image from here.

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Kasai Rinkai Power-Kiters

Mike GristJapan, People / Culture

At the edge of Kasai Rinkai park off Tokyo Bay there’s a narrow sliver of sand-bar land perfect for kiting. Stunt kites soar and rip through the air like carbon-fibre assassins, paper-kites ruffle and chuckle in the wind, ‘let’s go fly a kites’ sputter and trail their ribbon-dangled threads behind them as their owners race their dogs and kids against the wind.

Then there are the power kiters- packing the 2 and 6 meter squared kites- a rare breed in Japan where such goods can only be bought via the Internet, ordered from other countries, kites with enough drag to hoist you out of your boots and carry you sailing far out to sea.

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6 meters square kite soars overhead.

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Melon Cream Soda

Mike GristFood / Drink, Japan

Sometimes you just need a melon.

Here is an example of a time you might need a melon:

You’re hungry, and thirsty, and want to eat a melon.

That’s the appropriate time. For the rest of the time- let’s enjoy Melon Cream Soda!

Melon Cream Soda.

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