The Artful Engineer

Tokyo is truly massive. It would take ten more visits and some real dedication before I became at all suspicious of having walked 0.01% of its streets, so there is nothing definitive or comprehensive about any impressions of the city I might have. That disclaimer aside, like any city there are nice areas and not-so-nice areas. Both make for interesting images in their own right, but when one is surrounded by the other, the juxtaposition can be striking. In the image above, the buildings on either side aren’t that nice, certainly, but are clearly a big step up—in quality if not aesthetic—from this suffering structure. It really makes you wonder about the historical sequence of events that led to this situation. Ironically, if someone just put some effort into cleaning up and repainting this building, I think it would look a lot nicer than its neighbors: those two buildings were, as the saying goes, born ugly. I would love to find a whole block of buildings that looked like this one…there has to be one somewhere.

There’s any number of titles that would work for this next image—Landscaper Wanted and Little Shop of Horrors come to mind—but the same question comes up regardless: how on Earth did this get so out of control? I thought about removing the lady, but her strolling by nonchalantly in business attire, politely ignoring the unkemptness, is kind of funny. Just don’t expect her to tell you about the broccoli in your teeth.

I don’t know what is in all of these boxes, but it doesn’t look like they take a lot of care to keep them out of the weather.

This next structure has been subjected to indignity after indignity of half-assed repair; I hesitate to call the external cabling an “upgrade,” but I am certain it was intended to be. My advice: hire someone else and be sure to leave a one-star review.

My suspicion is that no one at all was hired for this next repair job. Another title: Honey, I Noticed Some Holes in the Wall...

This is just nasty. Honey, I Was Thinking We Could Use Some New Curtains…

There is some quality rust going on here. To be honest, I hadn’t even noticed the floral print fabric behind the hazy glass until writing this. Since they only live five blocks away, maybe they could donate a piece of it to the previous folks that need a new curtain?

I hope you enjoyed these images (and my snarky commentary). Next week I am planning to show some urban abstracts. Then we leave Tokyo behind and head north to much smaller cities.