Aug 4, 2013

Avant garde lover or hater? If you’re the former, you’ll enjoy the Sezon Museum of Modern Art in Karuizawa. Combining works by famous Abstract Expressionists with beautiful green lawns and plenty of Japanese elm trees, this museum in Nagano, Japan will keep you entertained for an hour or so. (Continued after Japanese...

Oct 11, 2012

Anyone here into sculpture appreciation? 🙂 The other day I finally got around to watching the film classic Citizen Kane starring Orson Welles. I’ve always wanted to watch it but somehow kept on forgetting to rent the DVD. Well, now that I saw it all I can say is that while the plot was so-so (basically the tragic story of a filthy rich newspaper...

Dec 5, 2011

Don’t you just love libraries? Growing Up in a Library I grew up in the Philippines. I remember being in high school and going frequently to the local YMCA library after school. I loved perusing all the books and magazines. The librarian was a very nice, friendly young woman who treated everyone with kindness, including an insecure, pimply teenager. Sometimes...

Nov 28, 2011

The Japanese architect Sakakura Junzō 坂倉 準三 (1901-1969) led a charmed life. The man with a degree in art history from the Tokyo Imperial University was accepted into Le Corbusier’s atelier in Paris, stayed there for seven years, and then went on to become one of the most famous modernist architects in Japan. It seems that Sakakura only formally...

Jul 14, 2011

Some might argue that Hokkaido in northern Japan is the country’s veritable summer capital, but for the affluent classes Karuizawa in Nagano Prefecture is the It place to build Georgian Colonial, Folk Victorian or Ranch-style summer houses, called bessou in Japanese. Our weekend trip to Karuizawa led us to a park called Karuizawa Taliesin, where we got...