A first impression of Tokyo is its size – the number of people at the crossings, the train lines, the signs, the lights at night. This is a stereotype one has learned to expect and it does exist. But then one walks through a section of streets with homes, not old, but human-scale, almost a village. And there are plants everywhere, even if it is only a few pots tucked up against a concrete wall.
The streets in this collection of photographs lie along the wall of Shinjuku Gyoen, the botanical garden, only steps away from one of the busiest intersections in Tokyo. The walking path of the series shifts between these residential and commercial worlds. Walking here, one has the impression that Tokyo has found a way to live quietly in the heart of urban chaos – a modern co-existence of scales.
Shinjuku, Japan May 2018
The book Shinjuku Gardens is one volume in the series Urban Drift, a series of walking projects undertaken in various cities of observing and reflecting on contemporary societies and urban life.
ISBN: 978-0-9810144-6-3
Copyright © Peter Sramek, 2018
