Day 24: Post Office Adventures

We were back in class this morning so at least my post will be a lot shorter! When we get together as a class we generally do less during the day because we see a few projects that are pretty far apart from each other instead of when I am on my own I tend to see a lot of stuff that is all right close to each other. But I enjoy traveling as a class and being all together with everyone.

Today we started our morning in the pouring rain, that umbrella that I bought is really coming in handy. He headed to Waseda University to have a guided tour by one of the practicing architects and professors there. We have been to a few Japan architecture schools now and it makes me really love our program more. The schools are really nice and are much bigger than our school but I really enjoy how our studios work and the studio culture that we have going. I definitely wouldn't trade that for anything.

After seeing the school we traveled to St. Mary's Cathedral by Kenzo Tange. Finally not a Buddhist temple! I feel a lot less awkward in a catholic church. The church was incredibly beautiful as well, it is pretty amazing some of the things that architects have done with concrete. I really enjoyed the curved concrete walls that he created and the impressions left by the wooden form work were really amazing.

Our last stop of the day was to see one more project by Sou Fujimoto that we saw the models for at the exhibit previously. The Tokyo Apartments, which I was a little bis disappointed by in person. It could just be because I was very grumpy at this point because we didn't get any lunch for the day. I just expected them to be a lot bigger in person for some reason, so it didn't seem quite as great as I had hoped.

The amount of telephone wires in this city though, wow. Luckily that was our last stop for the day because I was about to eat my own hand off I was so hungry. I stopped for lunch on the way home and then had an experience at a Japanese post office trying to mail some postcards home. Hoping they arrive within the next century.