This is Your Spaceship Calling….

Remember those movies we saw of future cities on earth, with glassy skyscrapers and monorails and deserted streets?  Well, that’s what Odaiba felt like when I saw it this week.  The guidebooks describe it as space-age buildings, electronic cars, and fantasy shopping malls.  It’s really strange.

Oldenberg's "Saw Sawing"

Tokyo big Sight

 Odaiba is a complex of office buildings, apartment houses, malls, and entertainment venues built in the 1990’s on landfill in Tokyo Bay. A new, conductor-less subway line takes you there from Shimbashi, tucked under the upper level of Rainbow Bridge and nestled between the car lanes.  When you “land”, you are greeted with large buildings, some your stereotypical skyscraper but some not.  There’s Tokyo Big Sight, a building of inverted pyramids, which is an event space.  There are a couple of massive buildings with glass bridges joining the towers high above ground.  And there’s the Fuji Television building that looks like a giant erector set.  Decoratively placed among them is Claus Oldenberg’s “Saw Sawing”.  No comment.

Fuji Tower

Odaiba has its share of museums, geared to Odaiba’s past (it was a shipping port) and future (innovation).  The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, the only one I went to, was fascinating, with interactive exhibits on genetic research for cancer and other diseases; robotic arms you can manipulate to try your hand at surgery; the role of serendipity in inventions; etc.  The National Maritime Museum, built like an ocean liner, looked the most interesting from the outside.  There’s also a Port Museum and Museum of Maritime Science.

This is a corporate village, too.  Toyota has a huge showroom of its current, future and past automobiles, and you can see the latest in its electric cars.  In the Fuji TV Broadcast Center, you can see how television programs are made and go up to the observatory to see Odaiba and the Tokyo skyline.

Anniversaire Tokyo Bay

Big Box Stores

Odaiba aims to be a destination spot, which means it has a wealth of entertainment and shopping opportunities.  In my wanderings around the island, open-mouthed, I saw several mall complexes with all kinds of shops, even ones we have back home.   There are restaurants of every style you can imagine, a number of theme areas à la Disneyland, an onsen/spa, etc.  My favorite was a semi-European looking “Anniversaire Tokyo Bay” complete with a church, which I think is available for weddings.  You can see it in the picture here, in front of the huge Hotel Trusty and the Baycourt Club. 

I will say the Ferris wheel was great.  It was the world’s tallest in 1999; I don't know if it still is.  If you wanted, you could ride in a clear cab and see the ground below as well as the skyline ahead.

I went to Odaiba on a weekday, so it was fairly deserted, which added to the out-of-body space age feel.  There were large, wide avenues, grass, new trees, a pedestrian bridge, sidewalks and walkways.  From the Ferries wheel, I could see huge areas waiting to be built upon; they were either parking lots or grass fields (“a wildflower garden”, one said).  With the recession, they may wait a long time.

In some ways, Odaiba is not that different from the other large office/residential/shopping complexes I’ve seen around Tokyo, though the others are more refined in their architecture and not quite so over-reaching or Disney-like.  Both have wide green spaces and have a more open feel than “old Tokyo”.  But they all have a certain anonymity and lack of human community about them, quite different from the Tokyo of even 40 or 50 years ago.

Pedestrian Bridge

The contrast between the “old Tokyo” and the “new” Odaiba was quite stark for me.   The day before, friends and I visited the Shitamachi Museum, which is a reconstruction of Tokyo shops and houses from the early 20^th century.  It reminded me of other exhibits I'd seen of even earlier times.  In their 60's now, Mune and Shigeko had grown up in similar houses, so could explain a lot.  Mune talked about his family of five living in three four-tatami mat rooms and a kitchen.  Shigeko showed me where the futons were stored, clothes kept, how the kitchen worked, etc.  What was most fun was watching them play with the children’s toys on display.  Everything we saw there they had used or done.  Much is still true today:  drying clothes on poles on the balcony is a common sight, and even western-style houses will have a tatami mat room.  But that way of living is fast disappearing.  With Odaiba, there is no trace.

The really strange thing about Odaiba is that it is built on landfill.  One reason is that Tokyo has limited area for expansion, so building out into the sea can be attractive.  Another Japanese friend explained that, after Admiral Perry landed in Tokyo Bay, the government began filling up part of the bay as a way to shore up its defenses.  She said it took until the 1980’s before the land was ready to be built upon.  But, as she pointed out, it may not be the sturdiest of ground.  It’s in an earthquake zone.  And if there’s a tsunami, as many fear, the island could well be destroyed.  So here’s this futuristic urban complex, erasing Tokyo’s past while hoping a tsunami won’t obliterate it.  No wonder my head is spinning!