Down a secluded backstreet in Tokyo’s Kagurazaka neighborhood, a one-of-a-kind rentable townhouse opened for business last month. Trunk House, operated by the Trunk Hotel that opened 2 years ago, is inspired by everything that Tokyo stands for: the new and the old, the Japanese and the foreign, and the city’s ability to host discreet gathering in its maze of back alleys and side-streets.
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Lighting is one of the most critical elements of photography it can literally make or break the end result. And if there’s anyone who understands the importance of light it’s Kenji Ishikawa. The 74-year old Japanese photographer has been travelling the world for the last 35 years taking photographs with one of the most minimal forms of light: moonlight.
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When Tokyo’s Okura Hotel announced that their main wing would be demolished in 2015 and be rebuilt, there was public outcry over the loss of the hotel’s iconic, modernist lobby. But the hotel promised to “faithfully reproduce” the former lobby and now, with an opening date set for September 12, it appears that the hotel has made good on that promise.
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Japanese artist Teppei Takeda uses the trompe l’oeil technique to recreate the act of painting in the form of abstract portraits. The completed paintings are anonymous, rather than of a specific person, and are meticulously put together through highly detailed paintings of gestural strokes.
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Designer Akira Minagawa, of the faux-Finnish brand minä perhonen, has collaborated with seasoned architect Yoshifumi Nakamura to renovate and transform a Kyoto machiya into a rentable guesthouse.
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One way to obscure a time period when sculpting the human body is to depict them naked. Fashion can make certain periods easily identifiable but by removing that element, the subject is placed in timelessness. The Japanese photographer employs this technique in his artwork by photographing a Tokyo void of any single humans. And in a region with 38 million people, this isn’t an easy task.
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Daisho Suisan is not your ordinary Japanese seafood company. In addition to their dealings in frozen seafood, they also do web design and illustration. So when, in 2014, the company decided to add tea bags to their line of businesses it probably wasn’t too extraordinary. The problem, however, is that they couldn’t find anyone who would make they type of intricate teabags they were looking for. So they decided to do it themselves.
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Mysterious. Vulnerable. Adorable. These are just a few of the words one might use to describe the work of sculptor Moe Nakamura. The 31-year old Tokyo-based artist creates imaginative sculptures of child-like figures, carving each out of single blocks of wood.
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Mifuneyama Rakuen Park is a sprawling natural sanctuary in Kyushu that was created in 1845. It is home to some of Japan’s most spiritual and sacred objects of nature such as trees that are hundreds (and in some cases, thousands) of years old. The site is also home to enormous megaliths. Almost supernatural in their formation, they have been preserved as a dwelling place of god. These enormous stones serve as inspiration for digital art collective TeamLab’s latest on-site installation.
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If you’ve ever visited Japan’s magical art island of Naoshima you’ll most certainly have visited one of its most iconic pieces of art: Yayoi Kusama’s yellow pumpkin that sits at the tip of an abandoned pier. Although the waters of Japan’s Inland Sea are mostly calm, during the summer the pumpkin becomes susceptible to high winds and waves brought on by numerous hurricanes.
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The 2024 Toyama Kei-Truck Gardening Contest
Myaku-Myaku Footwear, Inspired by the Googly-Eyed Mascot for the Osaka Expo
‘Puddle’ Are a Series of Flower Vessels Inspired by Puddles of Water
Shunga: Japanese Erotic Art from the 1600s – 1800s
Five Unique Experiences at Harajuku’s Latest Development Harakado
