Kian Goh
@kiangoh
Architect & urban planning professor @UCLA. Usually LA currently Hiroshima. Urban change & climate justice. Author of Form & Flow (MIT 2021) bit.ly/3Q92Mkd
Of course, it's impossible to pick one representative image of urban life in Japan. But if I could, it might be something like this. From a regional JR train, at a station I don't remember, somewhere between Hiroshima and Saijo. #urbanlandscape
I may be too tired to show it but I'll never not be thrilled by a Shinkansen ride. #japan #urbanlandscape #新幹線
It's absurd to be hosting a World Cup when you have visa and travel bans in place for millions of people around the world. What an absolute shame. This photo was from LAX in March. The incongruity between the tenor of this graphic and the reality struck me hard.
And here, a small rice field in Saitama, just outside Tokyo, on a strip of land at once agricultural, industrial, and residential bordered by Ōmiya Route S5, JR Musashino Line, and the Arakawa River and Saiko Park. #japan #urbanlandscape
Around this time, just before the rainy season, rice fields in Japan are flooded and seedlings planted. This happens in sometimes unexpected places around and in cities, bringing a kind of aqueous, verdant and reflective order to the urban landscape. Here from the train between Hiroshima and Saijo.
An architecture visit grail of sorts. Fumihiko Maki's Hillside Terrace in Daikanyama, Tokyo, built between 1969 and 1992. A lovely space, still a haven for artists and designers in spite of - or because of (groan) - the quiet lux of the neighborhood. #japan #urbanlandscape
A cliche maybe but a good one! Hijiri Bridge over the Kanda River in Tokyo. JR trains on the Chuo-Sobu line intersecting with the Tokyo Metro trains on the Marunouchi line. Public transportationmaxxing. #japan #urbanlandscape
Having a 7-Eleven onigiri for Toshifumi Suzuki, whose konbini innovations transformed life in Japan and beyond.
The playground in the floodable landscape. Arakawa No. 1 Retention Basin in Saitama Prefecture just outside Tokyo. #japan #urbanlandscape
I am once again on a dike. Looking over the Arakawa in Saitama. #japan #urbanlandscape
Unexpected architecture encounters of the day. Kazuo Shinohara at Tokyo Institute of Technology and OMA in Harajuku.
Tsūtenkaku "tower reaching heaven" in Shinsekai, Osaka. I'm not normally taken by tall landmarks. Give me a cantilever or dike or mat building any day. But this one is cool, the structure or articulation or something, how it fits in this always slightly cyberpunk city. #japan #urbanlandscape
Look at all these children's books on transportation at the Numaji Transportation Museum in Hiroshima. Including this folding book on my favorite Doctor Yellow ドクターイエロー, the inspection and maintenance train on the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen lines. Love public transportation love! ❤️🚅
It must have been simply astounding to see the Shinkansen run into your city or streak across the fields for the first time in 1964. It's still breathtaking today. Here just pulling into Hiroshima Station. #新幹線 #japan #urbanlandscape
More public transportation home team pride. Hiroshima Toyo Carp, the professional baseball team based in Hiroshima who play their home games at the Mazda Zoom-Zoom stadium, on a Hiroden 1 line streetcar.
Public transportation home team pride. Sanfrecce Regina, the women's professional football team based in Hiroshima, on a Hiroden streetcar.
Every day is better when I get to walk across a river. Here the Tenmagawa in Hiroshima, one of the rivers monitored for flood risk. #japan #urbanlandscape
The first really windy day of sakura means blossom petals collecting on the ground. #japan #urbanlandscape
A few scenes from Osaka, a city with more verve than many cities would dare wish for. #japan #urbanlandscape
Sakura from Ogonzan in Hiroshima. Wonderful. Really such a privilege to be here this time of year. #japan #urbanlandscape
First in-person photo of the Earth since the days of Blue Marble (1972). static01.nyt.com/images/2026/...
One of the charming things about Hiroshima is the generations of streetcars in use in the Hiroden network. Some of these oldest ones survived the atomic bomb in 1945! Here a route 7 car heading to Hiroshima Port, along Rijo dori close to Hondori. #japan #urbanlandscape
This evening! Ruth Wilson Gilmore gives the fourth Distinguished Lecture in Ideas and Organizing, hosted by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy @challengeineq.bsky.social. Naturally I am fangirling.