The city is that you have but the human brain, which appeared to the outside, the word in the ear. If you believe it, the figure of the city of Shibuya should there be in the form of directly Shibuya brain. Although story of assuming that there is such thing as Shibuya brain.
When you look from the roof, Shibuya wonder show us any figure.
Standing on the roof of the Tokyu department store Toyoko shops have been over a long history, starting from the Hachiko crossing, I tried overlooking the round 360 degrees. West Wing on the roof football park is provided, but the boys had gathered among which off and on the light rain, the roof that let me climb to obtain a special permission this time, another is located further on the football park which is the roof.
On the roof come drifted up from all sides, while the smaller the sound of the city. Features of Shibuya brain, first might be a this chaotic noise. Sound gaping float in the sky of the city is a huge cloud, wrapping me to stand on the roof. Indeed, clouds of this sound what he is arachnoid of Shibuya brain ... and, had come up with that goofy.
From time to time, from the screen attached to the outer wall of the building that surrounds the Hachiko intersection, coming remarkably at high volume voice fragments and narration of the music punch-through. When Tendeni video and sound from multiple screens is flown, I feel like myself became clear. Who does not come talk is also towards the individual that I, the impression that. Heck that screen us, whom toward, will what you want to convey? When it would be what kind of message is let loose, but he made a noise that does not have all of them meaning to arrive on the roof.
While the wind was blowing on the roof for a while, when the YAMANOTE LINE and SAIKYO LINE lines went to and from the Shibuya station, I realized that I would receive baptism of the "Financial Building" from the left and right. It is a financial building, that is, a building full of consumer finance from the first floor to the top floor. The financial building soars on both sides of the track like a statue of two Shiba Inu, or a dog with a crowd coming to Shibuya, and tries to catch eyes with flashy signs. If the track is the Shibuya brain medulla, will the financial building be a drug substance like brain in the brain like endorphins?
Intricate complex about Shibuya Station and Tokyu Toyoko shop space is unparalleled. And the entrance gate of a lot of lines that gather in Shibuya Station, Ai mixed alternately on each floor is East Building, West Building-South Building of the Tokyu Toyoko shops, but no longer as if it can not also be separated to anyone.
The south hall of the Tokyu Toyoko store does not have a first floor, and the west hall does not have a fourth floor. Mystery that the ticket gate for the GINZA LINE , which is the subway, is on the third floor of Shibuya Station. If you try to transfer from the Denentoshi Line to the GINZA LINE , which starts and stops on the third basement floor, it is a picnic with a total of six floors from the bottom of the valley to the mountain.
Shibuya Station came to this much more complex figure is none other than the results that have been grown little by little and the Station and Tokyu Department Store is over also of Years decades. Moreover, complex foundation and from the feet that both are built. I Shibuya River, which has become a model of the nursery rhyme "Spring of the creek" is flowing in Shibuya underground. No less on the ground floor, not forced to become the basement also confusing structure.
Shibuya Station and ties is Toyoko shop, leaf pattern, so to speak skilled varistor began to draw in a single movement of the wrist on the surface of a latte. Brown espresso and white foam milk mingled enters the subtle, it has shaped one of the universe. Who would drink divided the latte to espresso and foam milk on earth?
1951 around Shibuya Station (Courtesy of Shirane Memorial Shibuya-ku, Provincial Museum, Museum of Literature)
1934 Tokyu Department Store
(Courtesy of Shirane Memorial Shibuya-ku, Provincial Museum, Museum of Literature)
It was in 1934 that the current Tokyu Toyoko store (East Building) was born on the first basement level and seven floors above the ground. The name at that time was "Toyoko Department Store". It is the first terminal department store in the Kanto region. It was designed to go out to the department store's department, no matter which ticket gate of INOKASHIRA LINE and subway GINZA LINE, which were opened in tandem with the opening of the department. Shibuya Station had already had a unique structure from the beginning of the department store opening.
Toyoko department store went steadily developing as a terminal department store. In the same way in wartime and all of the high-rise building at the time, rumors that there was also that the battery had been anchored to the roof. I just 60 years ago, Japan was at war with the United States to the other, once again think about the fact that. Flying to the sky towards the "enemy", it was aimed from this rooftop battery.
Although Toyoko department store by the air raid of May 1945 all but the basement was accidentally destroyed by fire, after the war, small and reopened to the emergency repair. Restoration extend to 1951, it has been on the current figure by then also be overlaid extended many times.
Only three years from 1950 to 1953, there was a small ropeway on the roof of Toyoko department store. Toyoko department store and Tamaden building is a back and forth 75 meters by connecting the (current Tokyu Toyoko Misenishikan) "No. lark". It seems to have gained a very popular with children at the time, but became a suspended service for the extension work of the above has been planned from the fourth floor of Tamaden building. In 1954 the floor of above is extension from the fourth floor in the South Building, appearance of the current huge and complex store was completed.
With the knowledge such a transition, and try again recall the rooftop of the landscape of the Tokyu Toyoko shops, rapidly come and go screen of the video and the city of sound, so as to overlap the boys figure that enthusiasm to futsal, was a clear stream Shibuya River babbling and of that would have, Kuroguro and the battery of the shadow, cheers of children ride in No. Hibari come is faint double exposure. When you stand on the roof of the Tokyu Toyoko shops, a person you are standing on top of the Shibuya of the history of the sentence 70 years.
■ profile
Yoko Kawaguchi (Yoko Kawaguchi) writer, essayist.
Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture was born. Living in Tokyo than in college. Cafe visited in the middle of the walk and the journey up for more than hotels 800. 1999 Web site under the pseudonym of Samantha and hobby Takaji from the end of the year "Tokyo Cafe ManiaHe presided over ". Series in essay and cafes of the recipes in magazines and each Web site. July 2006 publication plan "100 reasons to open the door of the cafe" from the Information Center publication station.
■ book 『東京カフェマニア〜A Small, Good Thing』（情報センター出版局）
"Delicious coffee cafe to enjoy in your out" (Seibido publication)
"One pasta in 10 minutes taught in the Cafe" (Takarajimasha · spring Editorial)
"One rice-summer you can do with 20 minutes" (Takarajimasha · spring Editorial)
