The cherry blossoms were at their peak on a Thursday in late March when I went for a stroll in Ueno Park in Tokyo. A nimbus of white glowing pink with dramatic dark branches etched through it floated above the crowds strolling, photographing, and picnicking on blue tarps spread beneath the trees. What could be more Japanese than such civic reverence for this short-lived phenomenon in all its tender aesthetic frailty? Of course, everyone’s behavior was exemplary, not a scrap of litter and no one disrespecting the pedestrian flow.
Tokyo is a shrine to convulsive order, at once chaotic and fastidious. The density of graphic information, of building, of infrastructure, of people, of circumstances is like nowhere else on earth. It is a city constantly reconfigured by juxtaposition and remarkable in its tolerance of diversity in scale. (How does the market allow this, I wonder?) All over the city, small structures jostle with midsize and large ones in a counterpoise of energy and repose. It’s an enduringly fabulous place and the mingling of tradition, originality, and money has made it a center for design. This sensibility extends from the postwar generation of Japanese Modernists to the current day, and no country has produced a more refined and innovative cohort of practitioners or an environment more hospitable to contributions from abroad, a place at once insular and open.
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