Published in Metropolis, June 28, 2011: “While paying for lunch at Hirajin, I ask off-handedly if the restaurant has a long history. The wooden building, whose backside overlooks the Yoshida River, doesn’t look particularly old, but a small black and white photo of an older-looking structure suggests that there may have been an earlier incarnation.… [Read more…]
April 4, 2011
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Published on CNN Go: “In 1956, Japan’s Anti Prostitution Act shut down Yoshiwara, easily Tokyo’s most infamous red light area. For the previous three centuries, this neighborhood northeast of Asakusa had been one of only a handful of licensed vice districts tolerated by the authorities. Over its long working life, Yoshiwara was home to the courtesans… [Read more…]
April 24, 2010
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Published on Hint Mag: “‘I need to go out and buy more material,’ said, understatedly, Japanese designer Noritaka Tatehana, who was already planning to hit Asakusa, the Tokyo neighborhood known for its leather. A few days earlier, the hysteria-inducing pop star appeared on Japanese TV in a pair of Tatehana’s vertiginous platforms, taking the young… [Read more…]
February 25, 2010
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Published in Metropolis: “Taito Designers Village packs a lot of old-school charm—literally. It’s housed in an elementary school rendered redundant by changing demographics. The walls still have murals painted by former students, a parking lot retains the outlines of a running track, workshop space is furnished with science-lab desks, and the sinks lining one of… [Read more…]
January 22, 2010
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Published on Tokyo Art Beat: “There are no pictures on the wall, or even any visible installation of which to speak. Instead, what I can see as I approach the loft-like exhibition space at Radi-um is a cluster of men crouching in a circle on the floor. In order to get a look at the… [Read more…]
December 9, 2009
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Published on CNN Go: “An article about vegetables and porn may get you thinking CNNGo has turned a little too tabloid. But hold up. Kunitachi Farm sums up a zeitgeist: a national need for entrepreneurialism, structural reform of key industries and the revival of Japanese agriculture…”
August 24, 2009
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Published on The Moment: “When Hideki Aoyama, the director of the Aoyama Meguro gallery in Tokyo, decided to join the citywide Architecture Japan 2009 exhibition going on this month, he wanted to do something different than presenting the standard miniature model. And he didn’t have to look far for ideas: his gallery shares a building… [Read more…]
August 13, 2011
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