東京：都会文化のローハス系

t's not even late autumn, although it's already december. depending on where you look (and inokashira park near kichijoji (ji2 xiang2 si4) is a very good place to start), the leaves are only somewhat blushing. it was a very urbanpastoral stroll in the park the other day as i sauntered down a gently sloping hill, passing boutiques called "comme ca du mode" or "cafe renoir", flowering shrubs and potted plants spilling onto narrow streets, the light magical, soft and brilliant as it only is at year's-end, past an ancient "lao3 pu3" yakitori shack (called tachi-kui, "standing-to-scarf" is my translation), i broach the entrance to the park. plenty of old people, impeccably dressed and wrapped in voluminous scarves just to feed the ducks or walk a dog (or three). it's textbook urbanpastoral, and i'm floored. there are rangers standing (or rather, cycling) around, but one doesn't feel surveilled. it's perfectly regulated, gently modulated to the sound of plashing water. there are even announcements and tinkling jingles to beseech you to enjoy nature, pick up after your dog, and be a responsible citizen in general. it would be a little more grating assuming i understood more japanese. as it is, i feel it's only slightly well-meant in the way a grand-aunt's exhortations to eat your vegetables can be.

today, the "other" japan. but still, urbanpastoral...? it's ando's new omotesando hills complex. again, i almost weep in shame when i think that we got a trashy third-hand castoff Toyo Ito prototype, badly finished, in VivoCity...but Tokyo gets this beautiful shrine to consumption, whose somewhat base commercial motives are ever so delicately glossed over and disguised by the wabi-sabi concrete and "natural" fissureship that is an Ando trademark...The walkways in the mall slope gently up and down, breaking the quadrilateral box-layout without sacrificing a certain compactness of scale. You thankfully wouldn't get lost here. The Dojunkai wing is a nice refurbishment and conservation of pre-WWII Japanese public housing. I'm not sure if Ando applied his concrete over and above the exisiting facade. gorgeous in any case, and a much better juxtaposition of old and new than say...Cathay cineplex...?