Last Day in Tokyo!

Sadly, today was our last day in Tokyo. Tomorrow we head back to Kyoto for a few days.

We went to a fantastic museum this morning by Kengo Kuma for the artist Murai Masanari (a Japanese Abstract Expressionist). Kuma basically wrapped Masanari's studio building in another building, making it a box within a box. Sounds lame, but it was very cool because you could walk into the studio itself, and the artist's works were hung in the outer box around the studio space.

The exterior of the Kuma building with Masanari's old car in the pool.

The interior gallery space viewed from the second floor.

The wood is the old studio building, and the white is the new Kuma building built around the existing structure.

We made a pitstop at Shibuya Crossing, made famous by "Lost in Translation". It was pretty busy a la Times Square, but at night, this place is a sea of people and neon lights.

We also visited the Hotel Okura, a famous icon of mid-century Modern luxury.



And for our final event of the Tokyo portion, we were given a presentation by the Honeycomb Tube Architects, a group of Japanese architects who work with a honeycomb structural system to develop new building typologies. The honeycomb form has serious advantages in architecture: it uses less material, it's more structurally sound, and it provides a unique aesthetic. Their proposals were really interesting for housing, skyscrapers, and waterfront development. We then had a little cocktail/hors d'oeuvres reception with them at a restaurant (about which I'll post next).