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Your Guide to Design and Pop Culture in Tokyo

Shibaura Island Block Renovation

Shibura

I don’t really get what this event is all about, but Groovisions have something to do with it, which is enough for me to take notice.

An invitation by “Picnic Cafe” to enjoy cities and experience one’s own futuristic view of urban space. (TAB)

At Spiral until April 6.

The Art of Living

The Art of Living

Time to get some tips on improving your homelife.

“Are you comfortable at home?” Everybody has their own idea about comfort. But is there a specific type of home which many people would find pleasing? What is the determining factor of a comfortable home? In this event, five architects experienced in various housing issues will present their seven keywords determining a comfortable house. (TAB)

The show is currently running at Living Design Center Ozone until April 5.

Anko Sale

Anko

Andrew Duckworth of Anko lets us know that his tees are currently on sale.

GA Houses

GA Houses

I saw this, GA HOUSES PROJECT 2005, at Junkudo yesterday, and was definitely tempted to pick it up. It looks at various projects, featuring Tadao Ando, Jun Aoki, Atelier Bow-Wow, among others. Bonus: the content is presented in a bilingual format.

Yoshioka Designed Watch

Seiko Watch

It’s a new watch designed by Tokujin Yoshioka for Seiko. Ain’t it purty? Link via Dezain.net.

Mystery of Beauty

Mystery of Beauty

Another promising event in this year’s “Deutschland in Japan” calendar of projects.

This is a collaboration between the architecturally impressive, castle-like Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle, Germany, and Matsushita Electric Works, the headquarters of which are located in an equally impressive highrise building in Tokyo. While German industrial design is primarily known for emphasizing a product’s solid quality, this time students of the university present to the electric-appliance maker design concepts on the theme “beauty”. Exhibited for a month at Matsushita’s showroom are eleven results including suggestions for lighting and home appliance designs. It will be interesting to see what came out of this approach on a global topic from two different local perspectives. (REALTOKYO)

It happens at the Matsushita Electric Works HQ in Tokyo, April 7 to May 5. Official site for the event.

Garbage Can

Garbage Can

A garbage can in Harajuku.

Kateigaho International

Kateigaho International

I haven’t been keeping up with the magazine KATEIGAHO INTERNATIONAL. Although it does sport some gorgeous photography throughout, the content just doesn’t seem to interest me that much, as their focus definitely wanders towards the more traditional aspects of Japan. I did have a look through the latest issue (Spring 2005) earlier today, and there are a few articles of note: a brilliant pictorial with cover girl Chiaki Kuriyama, a look at the Meguro-ku area (we meet the Organic Cafe‘s Kazumasa Aihara — who also runs Depot and NEMS in the area — and Transit‘s Sadahiro Nakamura), and a talk with Cow Books creator Yataro Matsuura about libraries in Japan.

The Meguro-ku article reveals some interesting news. The Organic Cafe will definitely move sometime in 2005 (I’ve been hearing this since last year, with no set date), to make way for the Nakameguro Redevelopment Progam, whatever that is. As for Transit, they will be opening two new Claska-like hotels: one in Shibuya, and one in Akasaka.

Japanese-Only Composite

Composite

Well, it only took 3 issues: COMPOSITE is no longer bilingual. The new issue (Vol. 3 No. 3), pictured above, has ditched the English insert they used to have in the back — for more content I suppose. First PAPER SKY, now COMPOSITE…

Title and the CM Queens

Title

The new issue of the magazine TITLE features a cover story on the new up and coming CM queens, and comes with a DVD that includes personal messages from all your favorite gravia idols. Ain’t that sweet.

Speaking of TITLE, anyone know if there’s an official website for the magazine? I wanted to inlclude the cover in this post, but couldn’t find anything — distributor Fujisan only has a an old cover up.

Update: Here’s a link to their official page.

Gridskipper Week

I’ve started by weeklong stay at Gridskipper, so don’t forget to drop by. It will probably end up being Tokyo heavy.

Office Meguro Closed

Office Meguro

I was at Claska last Friday to see the “Catholic” show — very enjoyable, and loved the vibrating cat — and thought I’d stop by Office in Meguro, since I’m never in that area. I first went up to the desk person at the hotel to find out when it opened, and she looked at me strangely, and then when I asked again, she said the place was already closed, which didn’t make sense to me. I ended up going to the cafe, only to find that it had been closed down, and was now only available as a room to be rented. The Transit site doesn’t seem to have been updated though.

Groovisual Update

After a 3-month absence, Toe is blogging again at Groovisual Diary. We missed you!

Bye Bye Bape Cafe

Another sign that Bape is nowhere near where it was a couple of years ago: I stopped by the Bape Cafe in Aoyama earlier today only to see that it had closed down, with a tiny sign on the window explaining that this had happened for “certain reasons.” Yeah, certain reasons. Love the brand or hate it, it was still a nice cafe, created by Wonderwall.

New at Miru-Kenchiku

Dior

Miru-Kenchiku has 3 new galleries covering some of the big-name fashion brand boutiques in Ginza: Dior, Lanvin, and Louis Vuitton. Link via Dezain.net.

PauseTalk

PauseTalk is a regular series of events that take place at Cafe Pause on the first Monday of every month, with a start time of 20:00. The idea is to create a forum where Tokyo-based creatives can get together and discuss their own projects, as well as cultural currents of the city. The next edition happens June 4.

We hereby define a new term, that of the magaziner, described as a person who exerts an unhealthy amount of love for all things magazine. The Magaziner is a site that mostly focuses on the intersection between magazines and the digital frontier, and what it means for the medium. This does not preclude the inclusion of a healthy amount of print love.

Codex is a weekly music podcast hosted by Jean Snow, recorded in Tokyo. Playlists for all episodes are posted on the site, and you can subscribe to RSS feeds of posts and episodes.

Jean Snow is a contributor to Arcade Mania, your guide to the arcade gaming scene in Japan (Amazon US/Amazon Japan). He also provided assistance on Tokyolife: Art and Design, a guide to Tokyo's cultural output of the past few years, covering the works of over 80 influential creatives.
He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of The Rough Guide to Tokyo and The Rough Guide to Japan, due for release in 2011.

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PechaKucha

Jean Snow is Executive Director of the PechaKucha organization. He also helps run the PechaKucha Night in Tokyo -- please get in touch if you are interested in presenting at a future event. For a more intimate salon-like discussion group, join him at his monthly PauseTalk event.

A longtime resident of Tokyo, he lives and breathes design, pop culture, and gaming, sustained by an unhealthy addiction to magazines and frequent visits to his favorites cafes. He has reported on these obsessions for various online/offline publications, including the following: Time, Inside (Australian Design Review), Gizmodo, Gridskipper, Kotaku, 1UP, Tokyo Q, Superfuture, OK Fred, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, I.D. (International Design), Metropolis, Azure, MoCo Loco, Kateigaho International Edition, Wired's Game|Life, PingMag, CNNGo, Phaidon, and The Japan Times.

You can subscribe to an RSS feed of this site, and also follow him on Twitter and Facebook, or get in touch by email.

 

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The "Jean Snow" logo is written using the free Kirimomi Swash typeface. The "M31" logo is by Ian Lynam, and is part of a series of 31 unique designs. The site's design is based on the Grid Focus WordPress theme by Derek Punsalan.

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