In the chilly yet sunny winter afternoon, I took a walk past the imperial palace in the centre of Tokyo. I find sunny winter days refreshing.
The palace is interesting to behold. It is fronted by lots of that most precious of Tokyo commodities, open space. Supposedly, during the height of the land bubble, the land on which the palace is built was worth more than the state of California. This is in turn surrounded by some of Tokyo’s most prestigious office buildings in the Marunouchi and Hibiya districts. Tokyo station is just a few minutes away on foot.
The scene is one of juxtapositions. Open space meets tightly packed high rise buildings. Traditional Japanese architecture counters sleek office buildings. Yet this  never feels contradictory, because there is an underlying theme of restraint and control.
As you might expect from a royal residence, the public courtyard is immaculate. The grass is so well cut and even as to resemble a golf course. The trees on the lawn are of uniform height, lushness and distance from each other. The gravel is supremely even.
The office buildings are similarly controlled: shades of grey and brown, a certain minimalism and homogeneity in design that is easier found here than in Europe, the sense that unnecessary detail has been removed.
There is a sense of power in all this; a will and a shared set of ideas that have been realized to a high degree. The homogenous, flat skyscraper with a grid of windows is the triumph of human, platonic ideas over the organic and the irregular. The palace garden is man’s will taming the uncontrolled vegetation we find in nature. Yet such control is always a question of scale. We can cut and prune the trees, but we cannot control the color of their leaves or the exact angle of every branch. And we can cut and prune the buildings, but generally, we cannot control the shape of the overall skyline in detail. Something organic manifests itself in the multitude, even as some parts are controlled.
Power and rebellion, in constant struggle and symbiosis.
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