Roland Barthes wrote that the centre of Tokyo is occupied by a void...it is a quiet forest that lies at Tokyo's heart.
...The centre of Tokyo is certainly a void, but one that is protected by a circular train line, the Yamanote, which forms a 40-km (25-mile) loop around it. It seems to me that this ring of steel emphasizes the importance of the void, and the depth of its significance.
This is the first site along the tour. In here we have a void. I remember the building that used to stand here, it was painted blue. Passing through it, you can imagine how us, as ghosts – should the building be standing here – would have to actually be invisible to pass through these walls and now it’s the reverse. The building is the ghost and we’re passing through these walls.
Japanese music is above all a music of reticence, of atmosphere. When recorded, or amplified by a loudspeaker, the greater part of its charm is lost. In conversation, too, we prefer the soft voice, the understatement. Most important of all are the pauses. Yet the phonograph and radio render these moments of silence utterly lifeless. And so we distort the arts themselves to curry favor for them with the machines.
We are not now inclined to regard modern heating and cooling systems as representative of a spiritual realm. The physical principles involved in their operation are thoroughly understood; there is no mystery about them. They are simply functional, designed according to straightforward engineering practice to serve their intended function as efficiently and conveniently as possible.
And yet functionalism itself can be a kind of religion.
...From the fifties and sixties we have inherited numerous heating and cooling systems created within an ethos of universal convenience. Machines to maintain our thermal comfort were conceived of as mechanical servants, providing for our every need while, like an English butler, remaining as unobtrusive as possible.