gaps?
a couple days ago i walk through ginza, center tokyo. the typical designer-store-madness on the ground floors of towering buildings. i pass by a designer handbag on display. how many do they have to sell to afford this space? 5 per day? someone takes the obligatory photo using their new phone. brand new, just bought across the street (omg it is 0.5mm thinner now). my telephone is staying where it is. the next window comes up: watches. i try to make sense of timezones. no luck. boing!! (everything makes a sound here.) my eyes stumble! what is this long, way too narrow alleyway between these buildings? and not just between the handbags and the watches—between the phones and the fountain pens too! they are literally everywhere. litter-alleys everywhere! property prices are high and there is a gap between the buildings. the rest of the day i spend looking at these shadowed, often dirty crevices. naughty!
the distance between buildings is regulated by law. you can only build up to the property line so far. there seem to be a variety of reasons for this mandated gap—for example: fire prevention, space for the building to move during an earthquake, privacy, or sunlight.
but there is way more to this gap—metaphorical rather than legal. this will be the concern of a small zine now in the making. i will surely let you know when it is ready! until then, let’s see what happens next. kunde
