Firm Offers Architecture Tours of Japan

If you're looking for a better way to spend your summer vacation than going up to the cabin/lake/grandparents' yet again, and you have $13 grand burning a hole in your pocket, CScout Japan might have what you're looking for.

The company sent over a press release today about its architecture tours of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Speaking from first-hand experience, Japan is an architecture fan's wildest dream, and worst nightmare come to life.  There are so many fantastic and fascinating designs and buildings.  But a lot of them are hard to find, or exist in the most unlikely (to Western eyes) places.  Most of my greatest discoveries in Japan have come when I've been lost and wandering down alleys.

If you want to be more productive than that, CScout offers guided tours that are a cut above the usual tour bus fare -- they go to actual architects' places of work and you get a chance to talk with the creative professionals.

I can't vouch for the quality of the tour because I haven't been on one.  But the flyer makes it seem like a great experience.

You can read the entire press release below, and don't forget to visit our Japanese architecture web page, Tokyo Architecture Info.

Building Spotlight: The Golden Poop

There's a myth amongst Japanese fans in America about a mystical building in Tokyo that looks like a giant golden poop.  Well, here it is.

It's called Asahi Super Dry Hall (1-23-1 Azumabashi, Tokyo), and is named after the beer Super Dry by the Asahi brewing company.  It's not supposed to be a turd, though.  It's supposed to be a golden flame, and representative of the opening of a can of beer.  The windows in the building back up this notion, since they're shaped like little bubbles.  The gold building next to it is the Asahi Beer Tower, which is also designed to look like a beer.  In this case, a frosty mug of brew with a foamy head.

But people will continue to think of the smaller building as a golden poo, because that's just how people are.  Like the way people in Hong Kong refer to Jardine House (1 Connaught Place, Hong Kong) as the "House of a thousand arseholes" even though they're meant to resemble portholes in reference to the ships on Victoria Harbour.

More Tokyo buildings here
More Asian buildings here
More Chinese buildings here

A Taste of Chicago in Tokyo

If there's one thing I've learned roaming around the world, it's that you never know when you might run across the word "Chicago."  From Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill in Hong Kong to this "Chicago"-branded used clothing store in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo.  In some places, I've found that people don't even realize that Chicago is the name of a city.  They think it's a brand like Nike or Levis.