Richard's blog

Tokyo must be a city almost unrivalled in density. Zach, the guy who’s asked me to put down my thoughts about Tokyo, wants to know about places to experience the dense city lifestyle, so the task ought to be easy. But in a city where pretty much everything is dense, where to begin?

To start with, Tokyo is certainly not a homogenous density. Typically, as you move away from a subway station, things become less dense. As well, as in any city, things naturally become less dense as you move out from the centre. The proviso in Tokyo being, that Tokyo itself has more than one centre, and that the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area is a knit-up of several other “suburbs”, some of them the size of large cities in themselves, such as Yokohama, Chiba, etc. (All in all, the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area has about 31 million people in it, depending on how you count.) And while on the “front street”, most areas in Tokyo can be seen to specialise in one kind of thing (say computers, or books, or offices, or restaurants), often when you start poking around in the backstreets the story starts unravelling. Amongst expensive shops and skyscrapers, you can wander down a laneway and find dishevelled and dilapidated single-dwelling or single-business buildings.

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Above: Shibuya. Note the variation in density.

I don’t know how this works out, but my guess is that some properties remain within the family for generations, and stay undeveloped. So there are no rules that apply. Expect the unexpected. This is the beauty.

For sensory overload, the Shibuya crossing , although a tourist commonplace, is a good start. At many times Shinjuku Station is so full of people that you feel like you are part of some kind of human fluid. Ginza and Marunouchi are less chaotic versions of Tokyo. Genteel orderly and gentrified.

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Above: Ginza.

Another “orderly” version of Tokyo comes in the relatively new mixed-use developments, Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Midtown. These are urban renewal projects that and perhaps point out some dissatisfaction amongst the Japanese about the chaotic and frenetic nature of Tokyo. These monolithic, highly planned mini-cities carve out space and order in Tokyo’s heart while eschewing the kind of by-ways and texture that perhaps are some of the most interesting features of the Tokyo streetscape. Still, an interesting exercise. Also, Roppongi Hills has a viewing platform for panoramic views over Tokyo.

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Above: Roppongi Hills.

If back streets are for you, Urahara, the name given to the backstreets of Harajuku behind Omotesando, is crammed full of shops to explore. For a less retail back-street amble, I found the back streets of Kagurazaka interesting for their tiny bolt-hole restaurants and clubs.

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Above: Kagurazaka. Note how much smaller the buildings are! This is very “old town” Tokyo.

Pretty much anywhere in Tokyo is a good place to get lost, especially if you have a Tokyo City Atlas to get you out of trouble. Picking a suburb at random and exploring it is a very rewarding pastime in Tokyo. Chichi neighbourhoods like Daikanyama, just a stop from Shibuya but somehow a world away, can be fun for this purpose.

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Above: Daikanyama.

Odaiba is a place to go if you are interested in Tokyo’s urban fabric. Much of the area was reclaimed and developed during the “bubble economy”, and so there are some spectacularly excessive examples of over-architecture including the Tokyo Big Sight and the Fuji Terebi building. There’s also some fairly generic malls, not so the hilariously ersatz Venus Fort, which does look like a shoebox from the outside, but it is an all-out period Venetian fantasy on the inside. The other nice thing about Odaiba (which is really only worth visiting for a couple of hours) is that it is one of the few places in Tokyo where you can actually look back on the city and get some sense of perspective. (Tokyo is so cluttered that it is often difficult to visually orientate oneself according to landmarks. It’s also sometimes difficult to grasp how the city “fits together”, which explains why I only managed to work out how Shibuya and Harajuku were connected on my most recent trip. This sensation is heightened by the usefulness of the metro system — one grows used to orientating oneself in relation to the station, but not seeing the streetscapes as an interconnected whole.)

Specific buildings? What’s mentioned above, also Prada’s Aoyama store, Tod’s Aoyama store, Tokyo International Forum, olympic venues near Harajuku stn… heck I’m lazy, but look up the website of your favorite Japanese architect and go visit.

*enough*