architectural illustration – Contemporary Japanese Literature

Strange Buildings, the 2023 follow-up to Uketsu’s smash hit Strange Houses, collects eleven illustrated stories about horror-themed architectural riddles followed by a lengthy exposition that reveals how these mysterious places are connected.

One of my favorite stories is “The Mousetrap House,” in which the wealthy heir to a large construction firm builds a luxurious mansion in order to kill a disabled elderly woman. If he puts a steep stairway next to the bathroom, he reasons, the woman will eventually lose her footing and tumble down the stairs.

When this eventuality fails to come to pass, he bullies his daughter into creating exactly the right set of conditions to make it happen. This horrible story is recounted decades later by the girl’s childhood friend, who was there on the night the old woman finally fell to her death.

I also enjoyed “The Watermill in the Woods,” which is presented as an old travelogue that recounts a curious building in the woods that’s nowhere near water. Its mechanical wheel instead powers the movement of an interior wall, but why would anyone need that?

This question is answered in the story “The House Where It Happened,” in which the frame narrator (who is styled as Uketsu himself) visits the old watermill in its current form as a remodeled modern house. When the village residents illuminate the shadows of the area’s history, the sinister purpose of the watermill becomes clear.

As in Uketsu’s other books, the overarching conspiracy is extremely silly. I don’t consider this a flaw, as there’s a certain sense of satisfaction in how delightfully outlandish the scenario is.

It should probably be said, however, that Uketsu is playing with acute cases of human misery as if they were Lego blocks. If one were to stage a gendered critique of this book, for instance, the ground is fertile. Still, I think it’s probably fair not to expect nuanced character portrayals from the weird architecture guy.

I enjoyed Strange Buildings, and I flew through this book as quickly as I could turn the pages. Jim Rion’s translation is compulsively readable, and I appreciate how Rion’s minor reconfigurations smooth over the “info dump” awkwardness of the original Japanese.

If you’ve never read Uketsu, Strange Buildings is a great introduction to the writer. If you’re already a fan, this is four hundred pages of the same, and it’s fantastic. Uketsu has found his niche, and it gives me joy to know that he’s out in the world being strange and living his best life.

Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City is a fascinating study of urban space augmented by a wealth of photographs and illustrations. Jorge Almazán convincingly argues that, instead of being designed from the top down, Tokyo’s distinctive cityscape emerged from history and opportunity.

Almazán focuses on five distinguishing characteristics of Tokyo, from the famous zakkyo “mixed-use” highrise buildings that line the main boulevards to the dense shopping areas that crowd the bays between support columns under elevated train tracks. Each feature of Tokyo’s cityscape is illuminated by three case studies that are meticulously documented and analyzed.

My favorite chapter is about the narrow and winding ankyo streets of West Tokyo, which were built on top of old canals and have gradually become pedestrian oases. The most famous is Harajuku’s Mozart-Brahms Lane, the chill and ambient twin to Takeshita Street. As in the case of Mozart-Brahms Lane, ankyo streets have often become communal backyards for neighborhoods with flashier public faces.

I especially appreciate the Conclusion section, in which Almazán demonstrates that corporate-led urbanism has created unwelcoming and visually unappealing spaces that have none of the vibrancy of the more organic spaces fostered by collectives formed by homeowners and small business managers. While urban planning is still necessary, Almazán argues, emergent communities should not be stifled.

Emergent Tokyo isn’t a book for tourists, but I imagine it will be of interest to anyone who’s curious about urban design. Also, although some of the more academic text might fly above the heads of small children, I think Emergent Tokyo would be a wonderful book to give a kid. The illustrations and diagrams are truly fantastic, and they’re so immersive that I found myself disappearing into the details as I imagined walking through the Tokyo gorgeously laid out across the pages.