Awa Odori (a modern-day offshoot of the centuries-old Awa Odori folk dance festival held in Tokushima Prefecture), which sees 12,000 dancers split into hundreds of colorfully dressed male and female troupes take to the sun-baked streets of Koenji to perform Awa folk dances to up-tempo rhythms and a pulsating mix of drums, flutes and traditional stringed instruments.
Processions in historic dress are a feature of many major shrine festivals.
Fireworks displays (hanabi taikai) are a summer institution all over the country, including Tokyo. For a major event like the Sumida River Fireworks in late July, somewhere in the region of half a million onlookers head to the banks of the Sumida to watch some 20,000 rockets being set off.
In Autumn, the number of matsuri taking place in Tokyo begins to drop off from the summer peak, although major traditional parades and displays of horseback archery take place in both Kamakura and Nikko as part of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine’s and Toshogu Shrine’s seasonal celebrations, each offering a window on important periods in Japan’s feudal past and a chance to enjoy some of the traditions that accompany almost every Japanese festival—the aromas and flavors of the street food, the colorful silk kimono or cotton yukata that accent the crowds, the simple fair games for children.
It is very common to get dressed up for Shichi-go-san (lit. seven, five, three), a rite-of-passage festival in November for girls aged three and seven and boys aged five.
The Asakusa Samba Carnival. Not all festivals are bathed in Japanese tradition.
It would not be a festival without the food stalls. Yakitori (grilled chicken), yakisoba (fried noodles), okonomiyaki (a kind of thick savory pancake), grilled fish, cotton candy and kakigori (shaved ice) are all common finds at a festival.
TOKYO’S CUTTING-EDGE ARCHITECTURE
A mish-mash of architectural styles coupled with an unshackled approach to urban planning has given Tokyo a distinctive appearance. Like many major cities, Tokyo has its gray urban sprawl, but no other city punctuates the mundane quite like Japan’s capital. With a blank canvas afforded them by a combination of loose planning regulations, adventurous developers and the freedom given by the Japanese acceptance of impermanence, Japanese architects have created pockets of architectural wonder and, occasionally, architectural bewilderment, in the process names such as Toyo Ito, Tadao Ando, Kisho Kurokawa and Kenzo Tange becoming internationally acclaimed for their distinctive, ground-breaking styles.
The distinctive “ball” that appears to have fallen and lodged itself into the Kenzo Tange-designed Fuji TV offices on Odaiba.
Another of Tange’s works is the Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower in Shinjuku, which houses a fashion college, IT school and medical college. The cocoon design is said to symbolize the nurturing of the students inside.
To pluck a few examples from the air, conceptual architect Toyo Ito’s Mikimoto Ginza 2 Building, said to be inspired by jewelry boxes (Mikimoto, after all, is Japan’s most prestigious jeweler) and punctuated by striking cell-like windows, is one reason Ito won the prestigious 2013 Pritzker Prize for Architecture. Ando’s Omotesando Hills mall, built in 2006, features a six-level atrium that reaches three stories above ground and three below, with a spiraling ramp connecting the different levels. Tange’s Fuji TV headquarters, which is defined by a titanium-paneled silver sphere that appears to have lodged itself into the giant walkways connecting the structure’s two main buildings, is the defining sight on the man-made island of Odaiba.
Contemporary foreign architects have also left their mark, none more so than Phillipe Starck’s Asahi Beer Hall, which combines a stout building with a polished black granite façade on top of which sits a 300-ton golden “flame” with a taller structure that is designed to look like a glass of chilled lager. More high-tech is the Chanel store in Ginza, housed in a 10-story building designed in 2004 by Peter Marino that uses 70,000 light-emitting diodes on its exterior walls to frequently change its appearance.
The Tokyo Skytree, at 634 meters, is the second tallest structure in the world.
Designer Rafael Vinoly shaped the outside of the Tokyo International Forum like an elongated boat, while the cavernous interiors are defined by swooping steel trusses and glass panels.
The Kenzo Tange-designed Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (aka Tocho) in Shinjuku, which opened in 1991. At 243 meters, the twin-towered building was Tokyo’s tallest until Tokyo Midtown was completed in 2006.
Mikimoto Ginza 2 in Ginza is home to jewelers Mikimoto. Acclaimed architect Toyo Ito used a simple rectangular shape to fit the limited space and concentrated on creating a memorable façade, which has a honeycomb effect from multiple irregularly placed windows.
The Prada Aoyoma building, designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron. Many of Tokyo’s most striking structures have been built for major fashion brands.
The 2000s also saw the rise of the urban complex. The towering Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Midtown, often described as cities within the city, have combined to transform the Roppongi area into one of Tokyo’s most fashionable and cosmopolitan addresses, just as Ando’s Omotesando Hills mall redefined one side of Omotesando-dori. And even more recent than those has come a structure that you could not miss, even if you wanted to, in the shape of Tokyo Skytree, a 634-meter-tall broadcast tower-cum-tourist attraction that now looms large over eastern Tokyo.
The AO Building in Aoyama and its “twisted” tower house luxury fashion brands, cafés, restaurants and interior design stores.
The National Art Center in Roppongi.
