It was my first day in Tokyo and I had a little time to kill before dinner, where I would meet the group I would be traveling with for the next 10 days. I pulled out my Lonely Planet pocket guide and skimmed the entries for places near where I was staying. One place stood out – the Okuno Building, a pre-war apartment building that promised “a retro time capsule … with Escher-like staircases, an antique elevator shaft, and an ever-changing selection of [art galleries].” Perfect. A short power walk through the rain later, I found myself standing in its empty lobby.
A row of metal mailboxes was spread across one wall, ending at a wide entryway. Beyond that lay a shadowed hallway partially blocked by a set of drab green industrial doors. The antique elevator shaft stood in the center, right in front of me. A short set of stairs opposite led to a locked metal door; the stairs themselves snaked right, curling around the elevator shaft towards the upper floors. Dull brown tile covered the walls and floor. A cracked and stained white ceiling loomed above. The weight of time hung heavy, as if the building’s ghosts were shuffling past. I wondered if I was trespassing on their memories.
As I looked around the old lobby, I took a tentative step towards the stairs, looking over my shoulder to see if anyone would challenge me or ask what I thought I was doing. But no one accosted me as I made my way upstairs, and I quickly put such thoughts out of mind as I became captivated by the odd patterns of shadow and light that played along the stairwells. I wandered the corridors with curiosity, peeking into shops and galleries, nodding and smiling at the few merchants and customers who were there. I tried to remain as unobtrusive as possible, shooting everything handheld through a 35mm equivalent lens on my Fujifilm X-Pro3. I was drawn to photograph the building mostly in black and white, which seemed to fit the aging character of the building (as well as my own nostalgic journey into the past).
In its day, the Okuno was the epitome of high class, luxury living. Though built in 1932, it is one of the oldest apartment buildings left in Tokyo, as most others fell victim to WWII bombings of the city or the post-war building boom of the ’80s. Today, it is a window into Tokyo’s not so distant past: a blocky mid-century reinforced concrete structure a stone’s throw from streets lined with the ultra-modern architectural icons of the Ginza District. While most of the building is given over to an eclectic collection of art galleries and boutiques, the upper floors still house the apartment of its last resident, Suda Yoshi, preserved just as it was when she died in 2009. (Sadly, the apartment was closed on the day I visited, but you can read more about it – and the history of the building – here.)
The Okuno is actually two buildings side-by-side that have been linked together by an odd arrangement of passages and stairwells that still exists today. (The second building was added in 1934.) Windows from the original building peek through to adjacent stairwells in the second one, creating an odd sense of being inside out, or perhaps outside in, as you roam its shadowy halls.
It was a wonderful introduction to old Tokyo. Though I only spent about an hour exploring the old building, I came away with an echo of Tokyo’s recent past that reverberated with me throughout the rest of my time in Japan.
Okuno Building 1-9-8 Ginza, Chuo, Tokyo, February 13, 2023. All images were made with a Fujifilm X-Pro 3 and a Fuji XF 23mm f/2 lens, at apertures from f/2-f/5.6 and ISOs from 400 to 6400 B+W images are from JPGs shot using a high contrast B+W film recipe I built off the Fuji Acros profile. Color conversions are from RAW files.
The Okuno Building at right stands in stark contrast to its neighbors in the Ginza District, like the nearby building above.
