nosebleed with art

Last week, I went to the French Embassy to see an exhibition named "No Man's Land". The new French Embassy building was inaugurated next to the old building and the old building will be demolished in the near future. The exhibition is holding the old building until it gets demolished to encurage many people to visit and create an active cultural exchange.



Over 70 artists from France and Japan are exhibiting many kinds of works.The most interesting point of this exhibition was that all works had some kind of relationship with the old French Embassy building. I could see their works was inspired by the old French embassy building.



Claude Leveque`s work named 鼻血(nosebleed) was one of the most interesting works. What he did was only painted a stair hall red like a nose bleed. It looked purely arbitrary like when other artist`s paint as they like without planning.


But from one point, I could see a simple square red. I think, his idea was very simple and very interesting.

Tower House

In Tokyo, Many people may wonder whether to live in a convenient but small house in the big city or to live in a inconvenient but big house in a suburban area at least once in a lifetime. A house I visited two weeks ago gave me a new point of view about this concern.

The house named Tower House was designed by Tkakamitsu Azuma in 1966 for his own residence.   It was  a six story concrete house built on 20 ㎡ site in the middle of Tokyo.　(20㎡ is as large as 2 cars parking space.) Inside was very small and I felt the building not a house but a big stair hall. But the space was not cramped but very cozy and I enjoyed to stay there.


Rie Azuma who is the daughter of Takamitsu Azuma said that
"Because of this small scale, our family could communicate easily anywhere in this house, at the same time, I learned that it was necessary to care about one another to live comfortably. Of course the scale is very small, but  each floor has a different function and view, so every story is my favorite spot"


She also told me some other interesting stories about this house  and I grew to understand that they have loved their house and carefully maintained it over 40 years. I  don`t  know how the house was when newly constructed, however, I thought  their love made this house cosy.


Many people believe that big house is rich than small house and small house is poor. But, by visiting the Tower house, I learned that it is possible to have a rich house in a very small but inner cities site if I just have the determination to live there and continued to maintain my house.