The super modern midtown Tokyo area of Roppongi Hills and its skyscraper complex
I always bring a sketchbook on my travels, and like to look for interesting subject matter to draw. On this trip we visited the super modern area of Roppongi in midtown Tokyo. While it didn’t lend itself to sketching for me, it did offer so much in terms of edgy design, surface treatments, and cool and innovative human spaces. It was the first time I went into a vertical shopping mall – a mall in the shape of a skyscraper.
Taking photos and drawing impressions in my sketchbook lightly with pencil, it felt like I was collecting little snippets of forms as if to add them to a scrapbook. When you are an outsider and don’t speak the language, even common things can take on an element of curiosity, intrigue and even mystery.
From my scribbles I later composed these vector images in an attempt to capture something of this fascinating, contemporary dense urban jungle. Japan has this mix of consumer oriented service, high tech design, along with cute anime and a kind of innocence at the same time.
In these images one might see a signpost, some building structural element, water from a fountain, elements of communication systems. It all becomes part of the experience. More of capturing a feeling than a specific view.