"QUANTUM SHOT" #553 Link - article by M. Christian and Avi Abrams
Narrow-minded architecture can be brilliant, indeed
If you looked closely at high-res photographs of Tokyo in our recent article, you may have noticed a few buildings that are apparently functional, housing either a business or a residence, but are extremely slim - sometimes not more than a meter in width. We got intrigued with this way of squeezing the most use out of every square foot, and decided to look at other examples in Japan and around the world.
1. Ramen shop in Sangenjaya, Tokyo, photo via -- 2. Sandwiched between the highway and the rice paddy, city of Kochi, thinnest part 30 cm! maximum thickness 1.5m, via -- 3. Or just camouflage it with ivy, via
In Robert A. Heinlein's short story "—And He Built a Crooked House—" rogue architect Quintus Teal builds a cross-shaped house that, because of a classic Los Angeles earthquake collapses not into 3 dimensional rubble but instead into a four-dimensional tesseract.
While we've yet to see any buildings with extra-rooms that cross space and time there are plenty of other houses out there that certainly look like they do.
4. Single Family House in Tokyo by F.O.B.A (Katsu Umebayashi with Kazuo Kobayashi) - 3 m wide and 20 m long, via
Some call them "Godzilla's Dominoes", others "Pancake Houses"
The designers and builders have had a myriad of reasons for their creations' remarkable lack of the dimension we call width -- not a lot of room, not a lot of money, not a lot of sanity -- but the one thing all these crazy houses have in common (beyond a lack of closet space) is their eye-catching just-plain-weirdness. Tokyo, particularly, has a long tradition of squeezing as much as possible into as little space as available. A lot only a few dozen feet wide but fifty or so long left to go fallow? Not in Japan. Look at the first image below - a definition of cute and cozy...
5. Tokyo small building, photo by Alistair 6. One of Osaka's "pancake houses", photo by M. Terada
7. unknown location, photo by Hinabori 8. Kannai apartments, photo via
Just take a look at these exceptionally lovely, and surrealistically narrow buildings. Some of them, sure, look like they were shoehorned into whatever empty space was available -- but others look less like seizing every opportunity, and inch of land, and more like jewels of design and elegance ... if a bit too thin.
17. "Pancake House" in Osaka, photo by M. Terada -- 18. Tokyo, photo by Alistair
19. unknown, photo via -- 20. Not bigger than stacked rolls of toilet paper: Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, via
30. Inside the modern thin masterpiece by Shuhei Endo, photo via 31. "C-House", Higashi Kurume City, Tokyo, photo by Ano Daici
32. Ebisu, Tokyo, photo via -- 33. Tokyo, photo by Ian Muttoo
Fold it into the other dimension, or take off into space
When you need to "park" your house on a thinnest strip of land imaginable, consider the design by Atelier Tekuto company, bearing a humble name "A House in Tokyo". It is more of the cathedral, a spiritual experience, especially warmly illuminated at night:
It is a "squeezable" structure, which extends a ladder for the entry like some fantastic spaceship...
One of my favorites - and what I hear is the world's narrowest (1 meter wide by 10 meters tall) -- is Helenita Queiroz Grave Minho's place in Madre de Deus (translated as "Mother of God!..") (more info). If you ever happen to find yourself in Brazil you should definitely walk by and check it out. But be careful, at only six feet wide you just might miss it. What's remarkable about her creation isn't just the bizarre dimensions but how she's worked real magic into making it an actual, functional, and quite elegant home -- truly the sign of a great architect if ever there was one.
35. photos by Ed Ferreira/AE
Across the globe, in London, there's another slip of a real estate: at about nine feet wide in front it's almost a mansion compared with Helenita Queiroz Grave Minho house in Brazil.
36. Silver House, London, photo by Boyarsky Murphy Architects 37. 5 feet at its narrowest, and 10 feet at its widest, and was sold for nearly a million dollars.
Of course, New York City density provides a few skinny examples (besides a well-known Flat Iron building): here is one neatly sandwiched between two skyscrapers:
38. West 46th Street between 5th and 6th, photos by NY Scout
Not that Europe has somehow escaped the race to slim-down their real estate. If you travel to the wonderful city of Amsterdam, for instance, you'll see almost a plethora of narrow apartments and houses. The why being like that in Tokyo: without a lot of usage land the canal-hugging Amsterdam residents had to cram as many people into what little space they had ... even if they have to step outside to change their minds. One of the narrowest buildings in the world is located in Amsterdam, at Singel number 7 (more info)
"The tiny house is only one meter wide and not much wider than its front door. The people who live here must be on a never-ending diet... Admittedly, this is the back of the house; the front is quite a bit wider." Even the light fixture on the ceiling is almost as wide as the building itself:
Kloveniersburgwal, 26 is also called "Trippen House", or ‘The House of Mr. Trip’s coachman’. "Legend has it that Mr. Trip’s coachman exclaimed: 'Oh my, I would be happy if I had a house that was only as wide as the front door of my master’s house.' Mr. Trip overheard him and made sure that his wish came true."
Try to haul up furniture up these incredibly narrow stairways (on the right is yet another "narrowest" house in Amsterdam) -
Across the channel and up into the cold gray loveliness of Great Cumbrae, Scotland is what is considered to be the thinnest house in Great Britain ("The Wedge" in Millport) with an face just shy of 47 inches. 'Cozy' and 'intimate' would best describe the place -- and 'claustrophobic' and 'confining' being the worst.
44. The Wedge was on the market for £27,000 - photos via 1, 2
Other very narrow buildings can be found in Boston (left image) and Cologne, Germany, architects Brandlhuber & Kniess (right) -
So what happened here?.. maybe these people got tired of living in a narrow cramped house and decided to expand a little? or do they simply have a very wide bed on the second floor? -
Another really miserable example... they should cover it with something like this (see right image), or chop it into bricks already.
48. unknown location, image via 49. Crown fountain at Millennium park in Chicago, photo via
As the world's population grows and land becomes more and more scarce, having a place to call your own becomes a very special thing when many have nothing but the dirt between their toes and the storm clouds up above. Who knows, "skinny living" in narrow houses just might become the way of the future.
Moving large pieces of furniture into the narrow houses in Amsterdam is frequently done by hauling them up via the protuberance at the top front of the houses, built into them for that very purpose. You can see them on some of the photos.
Another incredibly skinny house on Place Kleber in Strasbourg, France, a little gem that tourists seem to overlook. It is 26 m deep, 6 floors high, and approxiamtely 2.5 m wide. The owner also has a smoke shop downstairs. (Scroll to the bottom of the page):
Great Designs! I love the Kitchen interior shot in Japan.
I remember eating in a restaurant in Lyon about 10 years ago called Traboule. ( Traboules are tunnels between buildings that were used to transport silk up from the river to the shops are warehouses in the 13th century- only wide enoughfor men to carry the bolts of silk on their shoulders.)
The restaurant was built into one of the traboules in central Lyon- a row of 2-person tables along one wall, kitchen in the back. Very intimate, and like all restaurants in Lyon, great food!
I couldn't find a reference online, so it may not exist anymore. I can't imagine that they could have made a decent living in such a small place. Not much turnover on four tables.
The first building you show ("unknown location") is here: http://tinyurl.com/cvprku . The neighborhood in Tokyo is called Sangenjaya, and the building is owned by a ramen shop.
The reason old amsterdam houses are so thin is not because of a lack of space like you write. In fact the correct reason is in the 16th and 17th century the ammount of tax you pay was measured by the width of your house on streetside. So people tried to build the houses as thin as possible to avoid paying large amounts of money.
Pittsburgh has a skinny building, 5 feet 2 inches wide.
In 1903, the City of Pittsburgh confiscated 30 feet of throughway to widen Diamond Way into what is now Forbes Avenue. Given that the standard parcel was 36 feet wide, there wasn't much left and most property owners sold off the remaining fragments to the city to become wider sidewalks.
In 1907, banking magnate Andrew Mellon purchased the 6 foot wide parcel of land, hoping the city would widen the street further and offer him a profit on his investment. In any case, the City wasn't buying and in 1918 he sold the parcel to Louis Hendel who built a three story building on the parcel. He may have been trying to take advantage of a quirk in the tax structure that assessed undeveloped property at a higher rate but most people think he built to spite the city.
Nearly a century later, the city changed its mind. Wanting to redevelop the Fifth-Forbes corridor, Mayor Tom Murphy threatened to seize the property using eminent domain and hand it over to developers. That plan collapsed (as did the one after that) so the building lives on.
I agree with Atty Finch; 23 Wall Street is essential to any such survey. An old joke cites it as the tallest buikding in the world because it has the most "stories".
There is another one in Valencia, Spain. Just 1m wide. They say is one of the marrowest of europe. It is the red one: http://www.vhfdx.net/photos/foto.php?File=valencia4.jpg&Lan=S
World War One, France: a radiographer wearing protective clothing and headpiece. Photograph by H. J. Hickman, ca. 1918. Credit: Wellcome Library, London
Paul: the "radiofrigo" is a keeper. Gorgeous; merci.
I always forget, somehow, that you younger guys missed out on so much cool stuff. The '60s and early '70s were amazing in terms of sound equipment. In the '50s the hippest thing going were tiny "portable hi-fi's" that only played 45 rpm discs, which had a 2-inch hole in the center. There were competing ideas about whether it was better to have an enormous spindle or just little plastic (or much hipper, metal) inserts that snapped in and had a standard spindle-sized hole in the center.
In the '60s you could get STEREO!! players that had 45, 33, and 78 rpm speed choices, and some even had 16 rpm gearing as an option. This meant you could play standard 33 1/3 rpm albums at 78 and produce chipmunk noises, or play them at 16 for the Quaalude effect. Hours of fun.
And I well remember discovering "massagers" in about '68 or so, to my wife's delight.
I think part of our modern problems stem from the unfulfilled promises of mid-century design. The World's Fair imagery was so wonderful, yet so far from what could really be engineered for consumers, that the gap between marketing and product grew too wide for trust.
The zoomy 60's "telecom room" -- what was with the "Time Tunnel" aesthetic? (groovy rounded control panels set in a cavernous darkness)
The Soviet phones -- Yum! "Da, tovarich! - The Party will reach out and touch you!"
Soviet stuff is so cool because of the USSR's Russian heritage and closed system - giantism and science joined to weird copycat and original engineering.
I wonder if you have ever come across a radial layout on an instrument panel? It seems that grid layout rules even in times when other geometric or unusual layouts would fit the style. I would love to see some examples of radial or other exotic layouts. got any?
Man I miss the hell out of Tokyo. Got to spend three amazing months living there - want to go back so badly. I love where I'm living now, but it's still not Tokyo.
I know five or six people who lived in Japan short term and long term. All had "futuristic" visions of Japan before coming and none of them were excited after they left. On the contrary. The common (and informed) opinion is that Japan is not fit for Westerners to live in, except perhaps for people running from something, or those just plain weird. This is substantiated by many people, including Japanese expats.
One exception was an American friend who was part of a popular band and spent seven years in Tokyo. Though the rich can have a great time anywhere.
The opinions of short term visitors are mostly irrelevant as to the reality of the place visited, and unlike many longer term visitors who stay in Japan to teach English and have other adventures, a veritable "Japanophile" friend of mine finally moved to Tokyo some years ago. Everything had to be Japanese, including wife and children.
It took a couple of months for reality to sink in, working at a high position in a Japanese company in Tokyo. He comes back a couple of times a year and at first we thought he was exaggerating out of disillusionment but now, we believe him as many people who lived there long term, including Japanese, substantiate his claims.
Can't go into details because he does business there (though Japanese business partners agree with his assessment, another Asian company told him he will destroy his life living in Japan) but he's writing a book about his experiences, substantiated by MANY people. As most people are averse to negativity and might not buy the book it might be turned into a website for all to access. I'll post whenever a book or site comes out
Hey these are some seriously pro shots you got in Tokyo. I was wondering if you could help me out a bit: I will be going to Tokyo this summer for over two weeks as the designated trip photographer (with a group of six). Any pointers you could give me on shooting in Japan? Especially on night photo's that would be great. Thanks!
Dang! Those are some really incredible shots! Great stuff, very beautiful, very Blade Runner. I'm definitely going to have to get out to Tokyo at some point to check it all out first hand!
Hi all, I am the photographer, thanks for all the positive comments, I am so glad that other people like my viewpoints too!
@Anonymous - an analog large format camera, a Sinar P2 8x10
@Anonymous - I find your observations interesting, but I think: I am disillusioned by my moneyjob as well sometime, it doesn't matter what country you're in, right? What I found most fascinating about Tokyo was, that there where more than 30 Million People literally stacked upon each other, but still everything worked smooth. You have a very efficient public transport, millions of opportunities to choose from in terms of leisure time amusements and you always felt save, in every part of the town! That for me is a role model for the future of urbanisation!
@Natan: Tokyo has a very short blue hour, I could only get 2-4 shots a night. But the light you get between sunset and total darkness is a total blast. You definetely have to bring a tripod, since long exposures need a steady foundation. Check the thousands of observation decks. Some have open Air, so you don't need to shoot through glass. For example the mori tower, which despite the 1000yen charge should not be missed! And always know in advance where to shot in the evening or at night, by intensive scouting. Have fun!
>@Anonymous - I find your >observations interesting, but I >think: I am disillusioned by my >moneyjob as well sometime, it >doesn't matter what country >you're in, right?
Wrong. Do some research on corporate life in a large Japanese company. And I don't mean Toyota or Honda.
When womens' opinions are ignored because of their sex or when a person's opinion is ignored because the other person is older by a couple of months that's a sign of a rotten culture. These are just two small examples.
>What I found most fascinating >about Tokyo was, that there where >ore than 30 Million People >literally stacked upon each >other, but still everything >worked smooth.
Yes, but definitely not everything. Have you taken a look at their food supply? That's just one example.
>You have a very efficient public >transport, millions of
Yes.
>opportunities to choose from in >terms of leisure time amusements >and you always felt save, in >every part of the town!
"Leisure", from dreary, depressing and suppressed lives, with spouses living in different cities.
>That for me is a role model for >the future of urbanisation!
Aspects of it, yes.
It's the non-Japanese that have lived there for many years that have the informed opinion, that's for sure.
Every person fawning over what a wonderful country Japan is has no idea what they are talking about. There's much more to Japan than the shining lights of a small part of Tokyo.
This is from someone who has a long held interest in Japan and knows various people who have spent years living in Japan, and whose claims are corroborated by many informed others.
Though it's good people are open minded enough to appreciate other cultures. However, a critical eye is necessary.
I can also back up a few of your claims about life in Japan. It's not all shiny-shiny as people make it out to be. I've been over there twice and have a friend who's been living there for some time.
I think you're playing up a few things to be a bit more centralized to a specific person's environment in some regards, but it's the culture shock more than it is the actual issue.
I think the biggest social issues Japan still hasn't worked out are women and the elderly in modern society. But it's up to those people feeling neglected to actually do something with their lives rather than complain. They may be spurned from their jobs with nothing to do, but that shouldn't stop them from NOT doing anything at all with their lives.
I won't speak on behalf of Japanese women, but the Japanese elderly are viewed in such a negative light, possibly, due to generational guilt over WWII.
If they're feeling stepped on by "The Man", they need to learn some self-initiative and get out there and do it themselves.
As to "food supply" I don't know what you're referring to. I found the food to be pretty dang precise and well prepared at all times I went out to eat. I mean, this is a whole culture that prides itself enough on it's own food to have TV shows of people eating their food. Where fish is thrown out when it's a day old.
Some of the better dishes I've had were ones prepared in small dining establishments where the only "name" was the lead menu item. I had a fantastic tempura udon in a small village in Akita in the back end of a grocery store.
I do agree that Japan is so much more than what people see in Tokyo. I don't recommend it as a long term destination for many of the above suggested reasons, and additionally, I have seen this "burnout" take it's toll on my expat friend who was very much a Japanophile in college.
For him the burnout was more of a sociological one than it was a business world one.
i get shades of that myself sometimes. Japan exists in many ways, as a hyper-over-exaggerated version of the US life in my eyes. It's like America, but not, and the ways that it is, are so grossly over-exaggerated from what we have in the US.
Osaka is more Blade Runner - a mix of future and grit. Tokyo is hypermodern - It feels ot me like information has taken shape an is flowing everywhere.
I have been living in Seoul South Korea for a few months now and I have had several "Blade Runner" city moments. It is especially so when it is raining in the evening while walking through crowded neon lit streets.
Wow.. Amazing photos. They represent exactly what I love about Tokyo... Good job. I also love the quote... The future began in Japan a long time ago... . will
A brilliant series of photos. You large format landscapes of Tokyo really are excellent. One of my friends who used to live here in Tokyo shot a lot of large format at night and had amazing results. I only shoot up to medium format when I use film, but seeing your photos tempts me to dabble in large format.
I hate to say this, but the Hotelicopter has to be a fake. The main basis for this is that the 'photos' in the 'photo gallery' aren't photos at all, they're CGI pictures. Look at the lack of texture. If they'd have called them CGI 'artists' impressions', then there might be some credence in the story (though it still seems kinda impossible), but calling computer generated pictures 'photos of a successful test flight' really jumps the shark for me.
When I was growing up in the 70's, our nearby park near Los Angeles installed the "Giganta" robot slide. Very popular; it wasn't just fun to climb inside of...many an intrepid explorer climbed up the outside as well and would slide down the tops of the arms (very safe!)
"24. Wolf, threatening to sing (don't let him!) in playground in Tomsk"
It is not so much a playground element, but rather a statue to a cartoon character. In the cartoon, the wolf was led covertly to a house to eat and drink, as a return gesture for the wolves previous actiones which led to the dog's being accepted back to the household after it had been kicked out for gross negligence.
having eaten and drunk a lot, whiule hidden under the table at a marriage party, the wolf said "And now I shall sing", and thus revealed its presence, to the dismay of the dog and those in the room.
there was one of those big robot things in my local playground. wonderful structure, but they boarded up the head bit when i was young to keep kids from getting stuck/doing drugs up there and eventually tore the whole thing down. now the park is "safe," and i have to say, much less awesome.
umm...you cant actually train fleas. they are all GLUED to said chariots and such. QI recently covered this topic on BBC one and its torture from the fleas point of view. so yeah, flea circus = glued fleas
OTOH, fleas lack both a central nervous system and sentience, and are thus unable to feel pain or suffer. It's like arguing that a bacteria suffers when we take an antibiotic...
Going through your fascinating post I couldn't help but think of the movie "Jurassic Park" and the scene in which park developer, John Hammond, played by Richard Attenborough, decries the breakdown of the park, dinosaurs running amok, his grandchildren unaccounted for, his incredulity at why things were going so bad, when it was after all only a giant flea circus like the one he had as a boy.
Wonderful article! I was fortunate to see the Flea Circus at the Tivoli Gardens in 1962. The fleas lived in a box and were brought out for the show. They were then attached to the little vehicles during the show. We could not see the fleas, only the little vehicles which magically moved along on the platform.
The wife presented the show to the audience, while the husband would go out to neighboring farms to find the fleas. He would feed them by rolling up his sleeve and give them a meal on his arm!
After they divorced, the wife no longer continued the flea circus. She converted the performing space at the Tivoli to a "Mouse House" which consisted of a small village of buildings such as a school, several stores, homes and police station, etc. which were empty and the mice ran around, in and out of these small buildings.
I brought my family to the Tivoli in 1978 and found the Mouse House after looking for the flea circus which was no more. There was a small set of bleachers where the audience could sit and watch this performance. It was a hilarious show watching the constant scouring around of the little mice., in and out of the buildings. I and my children were rolling with laughter.
Wow! These are funny and would certainly seem a challenge! Although the majority of them are not really designed for serious performance, one that is (and has been performed) is Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet, from the first series. It's actually a part of an opera 'Wednesday from Light'. See here:
http://www.stockhausen.org/helicopter_intro.html
for an explanation by the composer himself, and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13D1YY_BvWU
for part of the first performance.
I watched a fascinating documentary of the rehearsals and first performance. Classical music now officially has no bounds!
Some of this notations- Yoko Ono's "Voice Piece for Soprano", a note for percussion, Takehisa Kosugi "+ -" - were performed by Sonic Youth on their SYR4 "Goodbye XX Century" album
There is actually a totally restored tu-144 in the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum in germany, still a shame that the one in the article is just left there to decay.
A french kiss is just called un baiser in french, or possibly un patin.
Also, Hitler wasn't a vegetarian, that was just propaganda put about by Goebbels. This from the same site: http://everything2.com/title/Hitler%2520Was%2520A%2520Vegetarian
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14 Comments:
What, no Flatiron Building? Surely you jest!
Moving large pieces of furniture into the narrow houses in Amsterdam is frequently done by hauling them up via the protuberance at the top front of the houses, built into them for that very purpose. You can see them on some of the photos.
Another incredibly skinny house on Place Kleber in Strasbourg, France, a little gem that tourists seem to overlook. It is 26 m deep, 6 floors high, and approxiamtely 2.5 m wide. The owner also has a smoke shop downstairs. (Scroll to the bottom of the page):
http://weburbanist.com/2007/12/01/weburbanist-update-the-past-present-and-future-of-your-favorite-urban-weblog/
6 feet is 2 meters, not 1 (in the Madre de Deus house)
Great Designs! I love the Kitchen interior shot in Japan.
I remember eating in a restaurant in Lyon about 10 years ago called Traboule. ( Traboules are tunnels between buildings that were used to transport silk up from the river to the shops are warehouses in the 13th century- only wide enoughfor men to carry the bolts of silk on their shoulders.)
The restaurant was built into one of the traboules in central Lyon- a row of 2-person tables along one wall, kitchen in the back. Very intimate, and like all restaurants in Lyon, great food!
I couldn't find a reference online, so it may not exist anymore. I can't imagine that they could have made a decent living in such a small place. Not much turnover on four tables.
Here's a Flickr site with some Traboule shots to give you an idea of dimension.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/traboule/
The first building you show ("unknown location") is here: http://tinyurl.com/cvprku . The neighborhood in Tokyo is called Sangenjaya, and the building is owned by a ramen shop.
The reason old amsterdam houses are so thin is not because of a lack of space like you write. In fact the correct reason is in the 16th and 17th century the ammount of tax you pay was measured by the width of your house on streetside. So people tried to build the houses as thin as possible to avoid paying large amounts of money.
Pittsburgh has a skinny building, 5 feet 2 inches wide.
In 1903, the City of Pittsburgh confiscated 30 feet of throughway to widen Diamond Way into what is now Forbes Avenue. Given that the standard parcel was 36 feet wide, there wasn't much left and most property owners sold off the remaining fragments to the city to become wider sidewalks.
In 1907, banking magnate Andrew Mellon purchased the 6 foot wide parcel of land, hoping the city would widen the street further and offer him a profit on his investment. In any case, the City wasn't buying and in 1918 he sold the parcel to Louis Hendel who built a three story building on the parcel. He may have been trying to take advantage of a quirk in the tax structure that assessed undeveloped property at a higher rate but most people think he built to spite the city.
Nearly a century later, the city changed its mind. Wanting to redevelop the Fifth-Forbes corridor, Mayor Tom Murphy threatened to seize the property using eminent domain and hand it over to developers. That plan collapsed (as did the one after that) so the building lives on.
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM4JQ
Another very small house:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23879104@N06/2295271175/
(in Gent, Belgium)
I agree with Atty Finch; 23 Wall Street is essential to any such survey. An old joke cites it as the tallest buikding in the world because it has the most "stories".
There is another one in Valencia, Spain. Just 1m wide. They say is one of the marrowest of europe. It is the red one: http://www.vhfdx.net/photos/foto.php?File=valencia4.jpg&Lan=S
this is incredible collection
Same situation with my country , many small building too, visit http://www.andihope.com.
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