the romance of the heavy industry at night

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It is a cliché but it is true: Tokyo changes after dark. A “scrap and construction” approach to housing and commercial property since the end of World War II has left the relatively new Japanese capital feeling detached. There is no uniformity of architecture. At least, not until the sun sets and the lights are lit. Suddenly, washed in neon, you find yourself sharing the city with Akira AND Ichi killer.

When the night goes down, the roads become a kind of ignition jungle, luminescent. Tourists gather to see it, and various neon tours and online photography walks have evolved to take care of them. However, the most intriguing of all is the increasing popularity of Kojo yakei Over the night trips around the water factories of Yokohama and Kawasaki, industrial ports only south of the capital. Upon arriving on the Yokohama red brick depot scaffolding with minutes to save, I was created in a stuffed deck and offered a choice of coffee, water or beer.

Return to the UK, a surrounding tour, say, the Billingham Plant would probably not hit too much a chord, but this tournament is filled with thirsty Japanese viewers, mostly under 35, many of them young couples on dates.

Kojo yakei (Literally “Factory Night View”) Tournament are the result of a trend that has been developing since the publication of a book called Kojo moe,Factory passion) In 2007, which suddenly became a bestseller. Some managers have expressed concern that the increasing number of Kojo moe Worshipers can inadvertently discover the secrets of trade; There are even reports for some visitors who dance fences to take better pictures, or getting sick due to prolonged exposure to dangerous fumes.

I have never seen a deeply aesthetic industrial landscape – Exposed Exposed Pipes, Lights Holding Through Water

The boat trembles away from the scaffolding. Red brick warehouse includes a shopping center, restaurants and events; An outdoor rock concert is underway and the crowd sections return and wave on our removed ship. Taking speed, we move towards the Keihin industrial area – home in multinational Goliaths factories like Fujitsu, Toshiba and Jfe Steel.

There is an impeccable adjustment for Japanese modernity, which arrived at high speed during the Meiji period (1868-1912). The infamous writer Yukio Mishima compared this era to “an anxious housewife … hoping to impress the guests with the immaculate, idealized life of her family.” Navigation passes chemical plants with wide spherical storage reservoirs and, at a distance, you can make Toa oil and the thermal power station, a tube tangle. Starting the sun to set up on factories now. Their lights are coming. They are starting to change.

Passengers rush from one side of the boat to another, showing their cameras and shouting wildly. There is a vulnerable air of deck reverence. I have never seen such a deep industrial aesthetic landscape before: bright exposed pipes, lights holding through the water, in one place a single line of tree files that partially hide their metal anatomy.

In shintō, the greatest religion of Japan, souls (or in) are everywhere and change constantly. we They are amoral and manifested in mountains, sea, disease and natural disaster. According to theologian Martin Palmer, “some of the founders of major multinational Japanese companies have now been honored as inBecause how could they have achieved what they did if they were not filled with any greater power and authority? “

These buildings – like the resonac plant, a recycling structure now rising before us, known as the “white castle” for its brightness – have their excellent animism.

As the boat starts to go back, I buy a wet cans (alcohol looks like a rigid pillar of procedures here) and go to the back of the boat for a cigarette. From there, you can get throughout the panorama as it grows in front of you. The best thing about Kojo yakei is that you disconnect. You stop looking at the buildings in terms of raw materials, industrial production and engineering. On the contrary, they suddenly take on another life as oblique monuments or public art. Drawing in a smoke of a refinery, there is a moment of predictive silence. Then, the fire explodes from an industrial chimney. You can feel the heat of the flames. Viewers tighten and cheer.

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