PLANTS AND BUILDINGS IN TOKYO

A photographic essay looking at flowers and trees in a dense city.

Jared Braiterman,
Tokyo, summer 2010

Plants can cover the built environment.

Bury, hide, displace what we don’t want to see.

They also soften the hard edges of concrete and steel with natural forms.

What ugly machine is hidden by these pink roses?

We have paved over the city, and yet some residents are recycling materials and staging public gardens.

What is hiding behind these hydrangea?

And is the generous person who planted them still living close by?

But perhaps flowers and plants become more beautiful when juxtaposed with our built environment…….

Is an urban street-side lilac more beautiful and perhaps even more fragrant?

Is the ephemerality and natural elegance of a dogwood tree magnified by its context?

Didn’t I see these last year?

Scale and value shift.

How distinct are interior, sky, flower, and built environment?

Clay pots bring soil and life to high-rise living.

A quiet oasis shelters supernatural and human co-habitation.

What is the line between ornament and sustenance, today’s structures and centuries of agriculture?