I have never thought that the current view of Tokyo, with all its buildings, is beautiful.
No matter how you look at it, they are just concrete boxes.
I wonder if we can still appreciate the Western-style buildings that were designed in the Meiji period.
The Edo townscape is beautiful to look at the black and white photos that remain.
When I look at the reproduced color photos of the streets, I can even feel the breath of the people.
The sewage system was not as complete as it is today, so the streets were probably not as sanitary as they are today.
But why do I still think it is beautiful, combined with the clothes of the people walking around?
I figured it out. It is because the materials of the building are nature itself.
The pillars, outer walls, and latticed doors are all made of wood. The roof is made of tiles or boards made of baked clay.
The walls surrounding temples and samurai residences are made of hardened earth and other materials.
Because the roads are made of soil, they do not heat up like asphalt.
Because the materials used for construction are natural, they have a certain taste even if they deteriorate over time.
Even if it gets old, its beauty is enhanced by the spirit of wabi-sabi.
The walls of today's "dream houses" are often chemically processed, called siding.
So they are beautiful right after they are built, but after a few years, they become unsightly.
The old look is not beautiful, and it inevitably looks cheap.
Because the streets of Edo were covered with wood, once a fire broke out, it spread quickly.
Fire and fighting were the flower of Edo.
The beauty of the houses was in exchange for that, so one might say that it was a fragile beauty.
Nowadays, it is not possible to build a traditional Japanese house in a housing complex.
When building a house in a housing complex, the law regulates the structure of the building and the materials to be used.
Strict fire prevention standards must also be met.
However, people are tired of looking at urban buildings and housing complexes and find them stifling, so they go out of their way to look at small Edo (little Edo) towns such as Kawagoe and the old inn towns along the main roads.
They feel at peace and rich in their hearts when they see old wooden houses and cityscapes.
Nowadays, waste and marine plastics have become a major environmental issue.
And after some time, plastics that can be decomposed by microorganisms in the soil or ocean have been developed.
Disposal of construction waste will eventually become a major problem as well, so we can expect to see building materials that decompose naturally when buried in the ground.
The invented building materials may not look good, but since they will decompose, they may be similar to natural wood.
I hope that new technology will be used to create something that will rival the beauty of Edo's houses and cityscapes.
If that happens, people won't have to go out of their way to visit Koedo or Shukuba-machi on their holidays.
Soon, the Japanese people will be choosing real estate based on the beauty of the townscape.