中野ブロードウェイには、たくさんのグッズや店やガラスケースがあります。ここを見ていると、私の家にもっと物がないほうがいいのかなと思います。
So many collectibles, so many shops, and so many rental booths for the micro-sellers. Seeing so much stuff makes me want to edit my possessions at home.
木製の家は田舎らしいですね。実は、これは東京で見つけた廃墟となった家です。
This abandoned house is two houses from my Tokyo apartment. I am always amazed to see that it remains standing.
二番目に取り壊される家は洋風です。玄関の上に、古風な機械が置いてあります。
The second house seems somewhat more recent and more Western in style, with lots of fancy metal work and a mix of brick and concrete. During the demolition, archaic machines were perched above the front entry.
The houses to be demolished are the Showa-era one with blue roof tiles and the neighboring house on its left.
このコーナーは家と歩道の境目にありますが、近所の方のおかげでいつもきれいな花が咲いています。
This sunflower is blooming in a tiny mound of dirt outside a neighbor’s house. I love how she maintains this corner and always offers some seasonal color to the passers-by.
廃墟になった家のまわりに、だれにも世話をされていない庭がどんどん大きくなっています。アジサイはかなり背が高いと思いませんか？ 東京では、一年中雨が降ります。
This is one of the tallest hydrangeas I have ever seen. It’s growing outside this once handsome house near where we live. Tokyo’s ample year-round rain make it easy for plants to survive without our help. I’m hoping they won’t tear down the place soon, because this wild garden only requires being left alone.
二色のツツジが大好きです。この家で育っている花が路地から見えます。
This two color, pink and white azalea, is one of my favorite spring flowers.
旅行中、東京のお母さんがベランダの庭を世話てくれるので、私はラッキーです。今回、かわいいチョコてんとう虫が迎えてくれました。久家先生、ありがとうございます！
I am lucky that when we go on a short trip, my mother-in-law comes over to water the balcony garden by hand. This time, these cute chocolate ladybugs welcomed me home. Thanks, Kuge sensei.
This small succulent pair has grown well all winter long on my balcony. I brought it inside for a few days on our window seat. This is one of the first ceramics I made at my in-laws’ crafts studio, Kuge Crafts. I’m working with them now to create a new website for their studio.
家の近くで、古い団地が新しいマンションに建て替えられています。Garden Residenceという英語の名前はありふれていると思います。
A large parcel in my neighborhood is being excavated for a new housing project, called “The Garden Residence.” Who doesn’t like gardens, but couldn’t they have come up with a more unique name? I am curious what landscape will be visible to the neighbors.
The laundry line in our Tokyo flat is ever present, in the middle of the garden and directly in view from the kitchen table desk. Whether decorative or not, the laundry line is a porous border between inside and out, home and neighbors.
My handkerchief collection now includes the Bulgarian Kotooshu, one of the longest serving ozeki sumo wrestlers, as well as Asashoryu, the Mongolian yokozuna forced out of the profession a few years ago for bad behavior. Given the function of handkerchiefs, perhaps it’s not the most appropriate form of hero worship.
I’ve posted photos and written about this flower wall garden for The Plant, a visually stunning semi-annual magazine about urban nature. Even in winter, the garden is so colorful. Really, it is one of Nakano’s most incredible personal gardens, with hundreds of flowers covering the three story facade.
I did a double take on my bike as I passed this portable Shinto ceremony on a nearby empty lot. Ostensibly, they are praying to the local gods in advance of constructing a residence. But I think this is not the first year they’ve done the ceremony here.
This summer the weeds were rampant, and the empty space became a bat colony. Somehow the Mercedes in the foreground of a Japanese religious ritual no longer surprises me, even in Nakano.
日本語では「パワーショベル」と言いますね。昭和時代の家にさようなら。
Living in Tokyo you become used to the continual process of demolition and new construction. Not the ten or twenty year boom and bust cycles I’ve seen in San Francisco and New York City. Even in the perpetually shrinking Japanese economy, Tokyo continues to morph and grow. The photo is from the demolition of a post-war Showa house in Nakano, a residential neighborhood. It will undoubtedly be replaced with a multi-unit structure made of pre-fab materials and slightly customized, standard layouts.
Closer to my house, I’ve seen the local liquor seller vacate his main storefront, which was replaced by a brand new 7-Eleven in less than four weeks. I watched the incredibly fast work to the interior, modernizing a 1970s storefront into the faceless, placeless space of a convenience store. They also installed enormous heating and cooling structures on the roof. I was glad to see that the liquor store owner has retained an adjacent, closet-sized space for his liquor sales. He seems to enjoy interacting with the neighbors.
Tokyo Green Space 