Last weekend we happened upon one of the best places in Tokyo, the
Edo-Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum. We are (slightly) obsessed with festivals, so I look in
Metropolis (a weekly free English magazine about Tokyo) every week to find a fun one. We actually didn't plan to stay for the festival because it started at 8:00 and we arrived at around 4:00. We were having so much fun though, so we stayed. I'm going to have to break this up into multiple posts because I'm a bit of an architecture geek. So above is the oldest building on the site, a temple built in 1652. This was the only building you weren't allowed to go into.
You get to go into all the houses! I love interactive stuff. This was the house of an important politician, built in 1902. All of these buildings are original. They have all been moved from their original locations to this museum.
A view of the roof from inside the house. I love the tiles. Even the Western-style houses have these kinds of roof tiles.
This is the house of a silk merchant, built in 1922.
I loved this fountain. This is the garden of the first politician's house.
So peaceful. Japanese gardens are the best.
Here's Gen! Check out the windows on the 2
nd story. I think it's original glass because it's all swirly. Pretty amazing that survived the Great Earthquake and WWII.
This is the merchant street. The evening festival was based in the town square area. It's off to the back right side of this picture.
This was another residence. It's unusual because the exterior is Western-style except for the second floor. The
movable window screens are Japanese-style. It's covered in copper. This was typical for buildings built after the Great Earthquake.
This is the first level of the same house. The pockmarks are from the bombings during the WWII air raids. All of the buildings in the merchant area were built around the same time, late 1920's-early 1930's.
This is an interesting detail. Many buildings were designed to reflect the nature of what happened inside. This is a flower shop and the second floor panels are all flower scenes. I love the verdigris copper.
Last weekend we happened upon one of the best places in Tokyo, the Edo-Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum. We are (slightly) obsessed with festivals, so I look in Metropolis (a weekly free English magazine about Tokyo) every week to find a fun one. We actually didn't plan to stay for the festival because it started at 8:00 and we arrived at around 4:00. We were having so much fun though, so we stayed. I'm going to have to break this up into multiple posts because I'm a bit of an architecture geek. So above is the oldest building on the site, a temple built in 1652. This was the only building you weren't allowed to go into.
You get to go into all the houses! I love interactive stuff. This was the house of an important politician, built in 1902. All of these buildings are original. They have all been moved from their original locations to this museum.
A view of the roof from inside the house. I love the tiles. Even the Western-style houses have these kinds of roof tiles.
This is the house of a silk merchant, built in 1922.
I loved this fountain. This is the garden of the first politician's house.
So peaceful. Japanese gardens are the best. 
Here's Gen! Check out the windows on the 2nd story. I think it's original glass because it's all swirly. Pretty amazing that survived the Great Earthquake and WWII.
This is the merchant street. The evening festival was based in the town square area. It's off to the back right side of this picture.
This was another residence. It's unusual because the exterior is Western-style except for the second floor. The movable window screens are Japanese-style. It's covered in copper. This was typical for buildings built after the Great Earthquake.
This is the first level of the same house. The pockmarks are from the bombings during the WWII air raids. All of the buildings in the merchant area were built around the same time, late 1920's-early 1930's.
This is an interesting detail. Many buildings were designed to reflect the nature of what happened inside. This is a flower shop and the second floor panels are all flower scenes. I love the verdigris copper.
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