Niigata 新潟

on may 27th, i made niigata walk tour. there were several historically important buildings left, such as enkikan, former niigata prefecture hall, niitsu house, etc. yet it is unfortunate that theres no network of them. each of them standed by itself and the built environment around them were totally abondoned by the ruins of modernism and functionalism (except some nice ones).  i believe they should spend some to make surrounding areas bit more nicer. just in front of enkikan, the fabric of the street wasnt paid attention to. in front of former niigata hall, ugly petro stands and functionalistic box-like apartment stood. and nice area around niitsu house, there were still great amount of elec-cables covering the sky, and there were not even good pedestrian street provided.

from these perspectives, i believe that no matter how nice buildings they have and preserve, they cannot be made the most of if their surroundings are not equally taken good care of. this is what my homeland is often missing. although some people might believe and even i sometimes feel that that kinds of environment might be the charm of japan, i prefer to have them with good surroundings.

what i liked the most in niigata was the small paths around furumachi. there were the diversity. some old houses were renovated to some cool shops or just used by small retails without big change, and the mixed use of residencial and commercial areas produced different types of human activities. there were some street markets and art products as well. these mixture or chaos are surely great charm of my homeland.