The Portastylistic: Porta's Eyes...Why Tokyo gets my Olympic vote

Tokyo 2016

It’s hard enough tearing myself away from Tokyo after a 48-hour visit (my average stay) but a full five days during sakura (cherry blossom) season makes it that little bit more difficult. The combination of taking the Shinkansen down to Nagoya for meetings on a cloudless day – with Mt. Fuji perfectly framed in the train window – and tropical breezes mixed with crisp spring air made it hard to get in the cab to Narita last Sunday. Five days in a city you adore creates a bond that’s tricky to snap, particularly when you know that Los Angeles International Airport is your next port of call.

Visiting my friend Shuwa Tei’s house always sparks a certain sense of fantasy as I imagine what life would be like in Aoyama with my favourite clothing store Soph around the corner, a branch of the wonderful convenience store Natural Lawson steps away and the best hamburgers from Goro’s within arm’s reach of the front door. Visiting the governor of Tokyo in his palatial offices on Friday sparked another fantasy about how fun it must be to run the world’s biggest city. Currently in his third term, governor Ishihara instantly engages you in the challenges and delights of his city and rather enjoys talking about the need for better use of the city’s waterways, while also reminding you that the city’s limits stretch some 1,000km out to sea with a whole series of islands administered from the Tokyo government’s towers in Shinjuku.

While it’s hard to catch Tokyo on a bad day during sakura season, the city was looking particularly well polished last week as it geared up for the arrival of International Olympic Committee (IOC) inspectors from the 2016 selection committee. Without going completely over the top, it was hard to miss the fluttering banners and strategically positioned posters promoting Tokyo’s candidate city status for the 2016 summer games.

The city’s compact and cosy bid is promoting an Olympics that will mostly play out within eight square kilometres around the city centre and harbour and use an array of facilities from the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. Rather than pledging anything over the top (read: expensive and prone to delays), the city’s bid team have called on architect Tadao Ando to be something of a guiding light on the design side and are pitching the games as the most inclusive ever, as events will be woven into the core of the city rather than scattered out in the suburbs in arenas that will go unused once the torch dims.

Chicago, Rio and Madrid are the other 2016 contenders but, perhaps not surprisingly, I’m rather seduced by the Tokyo bid and I left the governor’s office wishing them the best of luck during voting in Copenhagen on October 2.

Saturday and Sunday were bonus days (no meetings, no real work). I ventured out to Asakusa with my colleague Fiona to go bag hunting and eat shrimp croquette, then let my friends Noriko and Shizuko lead the evening through Aoyama and Shinjuku Ni-chome. I had high hopes for my Sunday (a run around Yoyogi park, ceramics shopping and even a haircut) before my flight, but I was still belting out duets with my friend Andrew at 4.30am and only just managed to catch the ANA flight to Los Angeles late that afternoon.

I managed to miss most of the Pacific crossing and woke up off the coast of San Francisco, arriving in LA just in time to repeat Sunday all over again. Stepping off the aircraft I was amazed by the absence of a queue in the customs hall and nothing short of stunned that Homeland Security didn’t put a red squiggle on my visa form as per usual before sending me to the holding pen. With no obstacles, I managed to go from aircraft seat to car seat in less than 12 minutes – and this includes picking up checked baggage.

The drive up to Brentwood was a rather different story as the Sunday midday traffic barely moved and the sharp contrast to Tokyo became clear: the wide open spaces versus density, the blinding light versus shadows, the rather dull uniformity versus the alluring chaos. An hour or so later I pulled up to the quaint Brentwood Country Mart, dropped my bags, pulled on my apron and set to work playing shopkeeper. You might recall that I tried my hand at retail in London’s Marylebone before Christmas. Things went so well that we decided to take our tiny 10 square metre concept on the road – and ended up on the west coast. In a city as super-sized as Los Angeles, finding a shop space that’s less than 100 square metres is a serious challenge, but somehow the tiny corner shop in a quaint little retail complex fell into my lap while lunching at a Mexican cantina across the courtyard.

On Monday evening we throw open our doors with a small cocktail party and a hundred or so guests – a mix of locals from Brentwood, people from the Valley and Santa Monica and fans of Monocle who never venture west of La Brea. The prosecco ensured that they all got along fine. On weekends, it will also be a little outpost to sit down and enjoy this newspaper as the Monocle Shop will be the exclusive stockist of FT Weekend in the neighbourhood.

Tyler Brûlé is editor-in-chief of Monocle
tyler.brule@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/brule

The Tokyo 2016 emblem, which symbolizes the Tokyo 2016 Bid and incorporates the colours of the five-ring Olympic symbol, is part of the Tokyo’s message to the world as a Candidate City for the Games of the XXXI Olympiad and Paralympic Games in 2016.

Logo :

Concept: "MUSUBI"
Design Motif: "MIZUHIKI"

The logo of the Tokyo 2016 Olympic bid takes the form of a traditional Japanese knot, known in Japan as "MUSUBI." It integrates the five Olympic colours into the motif of a "MIZUHIKI", colourful and decorative knotted strings which long have been utilized in Japan to signify blessings during times of celebration.

The logo expresses the principles that underpin both the Olympic Movement and Tokyo's bid to host the Games of the XXXI Olympiad and Paralympic Games in 2016 - the creation of new values, the pioneering of a harmonious coexistence between cities and the natural global environment, and a lasting legacy for future generations.

The MUSUBI logo represents the perfect blending of sport and culture, cities and the natural environment, the present and the future, heritage and innovation, Japan and the world.

Logo Designer :

Kenji Ekuan:

Representative Director of GK Design Group Inc., Representative of GK Design Group, Honorary Consultant to the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID), Director of the Japan Design Foundation, and Chairman of Design for the World

When creating the logo, Kenji Ekuan put great value in his intuition and the ideas that flowed from there. "In the current day and age, in a world of ceaseless conflict, things may appear to be linked on the surface in reality are not. I intuitively thought that, in an age such as this, the most important thing we can do is 'link' one another,” he says.

“The Olympic and Paralympic Games will be a good opportunity for the Japanese people to look at themselves afresh. It is often said that people’s spirits are in a state of disarray nowadays. I hope Tokyo’s Olympic bid can work to link those spirits which are in disarray and link the children with the future.”
(Extract from an interview in article appearing in Olympian, the JOC magazine.)