Yayoi Kusama is a world-renowned Japanese artist. Drawing on childhood hallucinations that enchant viewers with their dreamlike shapes, she blurs the lines between self and other: a concept she calls ‘self-obliteration.’ While her exhibitions are usually sold out for months in advance, Tokyo is brimming with similarly psychedelic sites and states.
Gotokuji Temple: Lucky Cat Shrine
Because of its popularity in Chinese communities, the maneki-neko (Beckoning Cat) is frequently mistaken as being Chinese in origin, and is sometimes referred to as the “Chinese lucky cat” or jīnmāo (“golden cat”). However it is commonly believed that the maneki-neko originated in either Tokyo (then named Edo) or Kyoto.
This is what gives the Gotokuji (a Buddhist temple in Tokyo’s Setagaya district) its fame, with prevailing legends citing it as the birthplace of the 9-lived good luck charm. According to modern mythology: during the Edo period (the final era of traditional Japanese government) a cat under the care of a priest at the Gotokuji Temple led a feudal lord to safety during a thunderstorm. This cat beckoned the lord and his servants inside with a waving gesture, giving life to today’s maneki-neko memorabilia – which have been frozen in time with one paw raised.
It is said that the lord enjoyed tea with the priest while the thunderstorm continued to rage outside. To express his gratitude afterwards, he donated rice and land, as well as selecting the Gotokuji Temple as the cemetery for his prestigious family. Today, visitors can see hundreds of lucky cat figures on display around a statue of the goddess of Mercy, Kannon. The main temple and grounds are dotted with the critters, while cat-related art continues to line the surrounding streets. Locals and tourists contribute new maneki-neko artifacts as offerings almost every day, making it seem as though they magically multiply like rabbits.
Waseda El Dorado: Gaudí Of Japan
The eccentric El Dorado building, located within the university district of Waseda, is one of the most notable architectural oddities in Tokyo. Also known as Rhythms of Vision, it’s eye-catching, avant-garde, and Gaudí-esque design, is typical of its Japanese creator Von Jour Caux. Born Tanaka Toshirō in 1934, the architect took to calling himself Bon Jukō (romanised as Von Jour Caux) in 1974. This name, which combines concepts from the Upanishads alongside the post-humous name of his adoptive father, encapsulates the artists’ self-expressive style.
Built in 1983, this mystical space was a collaboration between Von (a graduate of Waseda university) and a group of young artists who resonated with his ideas. He gave the young artists the opportunity to turn their nascent concepts into reality, and they repaid this trust in kind with their fantastical creations. This mutually beneficial relationship is what allowed Von to overcome the restraints of limited time and budgets, and is one of the things that distinguishes Von from Gaudí – having given his collaborators free rein and as much space as they needed to express their own ideas.
As a result, the entire exterior is adorned with an array of decorations that border on the bizarre. In one place, a female torso is tattooed with a mixture of Art Nouveau and Edo Period woodblock designs, and in another, marble faces seem to grow out of the wall, their expressions half-smiling in a slightly crazed amusement. Upon entering, visitors are welcomed through the hallways by a mosaic recreation of the ancient Gorgoneion – the stylised head of Medusa sticking her tongue out; once believed to be a powerful amulet. The section of the corridor that’s open to the public is a small but mighty treasure trove of outlandish abstract murals and colourful stained glass windows, housed within what looks like a long-forgotten Gothic cathedral.
In the lobby, at the end of the winding corridor, hangs a large enigmatic sculpture of a hand pointing downwards, ushering visitors into this richly imaginative utopia. Von has been fascinated by the theatre since childhood and has described how incorporating fantastic elements makes it possible for people to experience a sense of drama by stirring up deep memories and provoking reveries and imaginative narratives. The intrusion of unexpected objects into corridors and other humdrum spaces replicates life’s rites of passage, and provokes musings as to whether or not the unseen hand of an almighty being guides one through these liminal spaces.
Although the first floor contains an art gallery as well as an antique shop and a beauty salon, the upper floors mainly serve as rental apartments. This is in line with Von Jour Caux’s architectural philosophy – counteracting the monotonous uniformity of modernism and creating living spaces that inspire positive effects on residents’ minds.
The Myth Of Tomorrow: Tarō Okamoto
After being lost for decades, this striking mural depicting the atomic bomb covers the wall of a busy Tokyo metro station. In the centre, a skeleton erupts into flames, trailed by a train of ghosts and others humans running from the fire; a Guernica of the atomic age paying tribute to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the artwork’s history is just as captivating as the images it portrays.
Japanese artist Tarō Okamoto started this work in 1967, when he was asked to paint a mural for a new hotel in Mexico City. He completed the giant mural in September 1969, but the finished work was never on display – his client had gone bankrupt before the hotel’s completion. The mural then went missing for decades. Tarō’s secretary and life partner, Toshiko Okamoto, kept looking for the masterpiece even after his death. She finally discovered it in 2003 in a Mexican suburb. Due to decades of negligent storage, the work was heavily damaged, so Toshiko and her supporters transported the artwork back to Japan and restored it there.
The restoration was a huge project that cost hundreds of millions of dollars – the piece was separated into several parts and shipped to Japan in a container in 2005. Sadly, Toshiko died just before its arrival. The mural was restored by Emile Yoshimura, who had worked with other pieces made by Tarō. After a few temporary exhibitions, a permanent home was sought. Several cities participated in the bid before it was decided to locate it within a passageway in Tokyo’s notoriously busy Shibuya Station as a public artwork. It has been on display since November 2008. Since then, billions of people have passed by this giant masterpiece, with many completely unaware of its history, journey and legacy.
You can view more murals and artworks at the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum, which has converted the artists’ former home and studio into an eccentric celebration of his work – featuring space cats, sculpture gardens, and video installations; This is the place where Okamoto planned pictures, dictated manuscripts, struggled with monuments, met with people, and conceived and created all kinds of quirks. In his studio, where unfinished canvases and paintbrushes still remain, visitors work their way through pieces that are both playful and sinister, life-affirming and chaotic, within a space that is still overflowing with his uniquely energetic life.
Koukokuji Buddhist Temple: LED Afterlife
Located in a quiet corner of Shinjuku in Tokyo, this cozy high-tech temple includes a columbarium filled with colourful, digitised Buddhas guarding the ashes of the dead, alongside two of the world’s oldest ginkgo trees. The outside of the octagonal Ruriden columbarium mimics a traditional Buddhist burial building with heavy wooden doors and curving eaves, which belies its silicone innards. It’s home to 2,046 small altars, each with a drawer holding the ashes of the deceased, topped by a floating crystal Buddha.
Descendants can use a smart card, which grants access to the building and lights up their relatives corresponding statue. Alternatively, you can search for a particular name; or if you don’t have a relative here, type コウコ (ko-u-ko) on the tablet and the 幸國寺 (Koukokuji) will turn up. Just press it and the illumination will begin. Clutches of flowers are often left, but there are no traditional incense sticks or memorial plaques here. The dead’s ashes are stored for 33 years before they’re buried below the structure. Traditionally, funeral arrangements are left to remaining family, but an increasingly common trend in Japan is for the aging to prepare their own graves before they die.
Kōkokuji is a lovely temple in its own right, so be sure to walk past the outer buildings through the Torii Gates and into the temple proper. To the left of the main shrine is a temple bell and a small cemetery; to the right is a slightly larger cemetery; it is in this area where you encounter the gigantic old ginkgo trees. The ginkgo trees are estimated to be at least 300 years old and none the worse for wear, despite having survived the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and the air raids of 1945; they still shelter a collection of tombs as they have done for decades. Seemingly timeless, each tree proudly wears a small plaque hung around its thick gnarled trunk, proclaiming its estimated age.
