Once you start noticing the small, odd charms of ordinary buildings, you cannot stop. Windows shaped like colorful ovals lined up in rows, a mermaid asleep on a wall, a Santa Claus arriving on a facade, a termite logo worn with pride, a smiling face on a dress shirt sign — these are the buildings that photographer Ken Oyama kept stumbling across and quietly photographing over the years, simply because he liked them.
This collection gathers 120 of those buildings, found in Hong Kong, Bangkok, London, New York, and everywhere from Hokkaido to Kagoshima. Across 192 pages, you get a photographic survey of facades, windows, tiles, signage, and small decorative flourishes that most guidebooks walk right past — the kind of details that make you look up on your next walk through any city.
Framing the photographs are two essays. The preface asks why these buildings feel good to look at, and what kawaii actually means when applied to concrete and glass. In place of an afterword, an essay on power lines and urban theory argues that the city is precisely the place where buildings and wires, belonging to completely different logics and scales, end up sharing the same space.
The text is in Japanese, but the photographs carry the book on their own. Published by Honnozasshi. A rewarding pick for anyone interested in architecture, street photography, or the visual texture of everyday urban life.
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