Temples in Nara - Japan

Japan's Neon Lights

Urban Life in a Neon Forest



One of the most enduring images people have of Japan is the riot of multicolored neon light that illuminates major city centers with a vibrant nighttime glow.

What looks like a gaudy collection of signs during daylight hours:




(images credit: Andrew Eckford)

...at night turns into a veritable forest of glowing signage. Ginza District at Night:


(image credit: Archidose.org)






(images credit: Jakob Oester)


(image credit: P!xeL')

Where did it all begin? Neon lighting itself is less than a century old and Japan's first displays were opened in 1926 at Tokyo's Hibiya Park. Advertisers soon saw the possibilities inherent in night lighting with neon, and one in particular was determined to make a name for themselves in neon.



In December 1957, switches were thrown and a giant neon sign nearly 36 feet wide in the center of the Ginza strip proclaimed the name "SONY" to the watching world. Each massive neon letter weighed almost 580 lbs.! It's hard to answer "What if?" questions, but without that sign, the history of both SONY and of neon advertising in Japan may have taken a different, less auspicious direction.

Instead, neon lighting caught on in Japan as the 1960s swung into gear. Tokyo Ginza at night in 1965:


(image credit: Thomas B. Roach)

Today, publishers often choose Japan's urban neon lightscapes to illustrate articles on Japan's two major metropoli, Tokyo and Osaka.

Modern illumination on Ginza:


(images credit: K. Lee and Hiroaki Ohtsu)

The heart of Tokyo is the famed Ginza, renowned for having some of the world's most expensive stores. Devastated by bombing in World War II, the Ginza has made a remarkable comeback - celebrated nightly in neon.


(image credit: Eitaneko)

Soft pastel shades mix with eye-catching primary colors, highlighted here and there with complementary incandescent lighting that plays up the contours of the district's historic architecture.


(image credit: Ryo)

Even Japan's far northern island of Hokkaido has embraced the unique ambiance of neon. Sapporo's entertainment district of Susukino features a scenic neon canyon of kaleidoscopic color that rates right up there with the heavy hitters down south:


(image credit: Paul Dymond)

Moving on to Osaka, Japan's second largest city and Tokyo's fierce rival, you'll find another spectacular tableau of pulsating neon. Shinsaibashi in Osaka's city center comes alive every evening with flickering, ever-changing panoplies of glowing neon light in every imaginable shade:


(image credit: Matthias Jaap)


(image credit: A Mystery Reflex)


(image credit: Jonathan S.)

What's more, these displays extend skyward for nearly 10 stories! This is a distinguishing feature of Japanese neon advertising: not a whole lot at street level, but look up to be amazed and entranced!

Retro-Technology

Vacuum Tube Radio / Interior Design Piece

One obscure shop in Japan sells these:



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An alarm clock with all its cog-wheels spilling out.
...from the same store:





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Speaking about cool steampunk-ish clocks, these ones go on your computer desktop.



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Recently you could buy on Ebay this cool Cold War-era Russian phone
(from a subterranean nuclear bunker):


- but it would only work if you speak in Russian.
(the text says: "Remember! The Enemy is listening!")

and a quite collectible retro calculator:

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Cool Steampunk Computer Case Mod

Found on a Russian site
The original link is here





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For the more radically inclined (not satisfied with mere external case modifications) - there is a Tinkertoy wooden computer. Entirely in a class of its own, this is a unique, if rather slow computer concept:



Read its description here. Apparently it's good enough to beat humans at the "tic-tac-toe" game.
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Nixie Tube clocks
Exotic, practical clocks built around wonderfully obsolete Nixie display tubes.




"NIXIE" numeric displays: introduced in 1952, they quickly became the most common numeric display device in laboratory/industrial equipment until they were instantly forgotten in the early 1970's.

Source: WPS
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Unique Clock-Voltmeter



Believe it or not, this is also a clock. "The Model 13 is a one of a kind clock, partially a design study in the use of an analog meter movement for information display. The clock is housed in a portable AC voltmeter, available from the late 1930's through the mid-1950's. The original meter movement was retained, and the meter card recalibrated with scales necessary to display time and date. A fairly complex set of software routines are necessary to accurately present time on the primitive and decidedly nonlinear meter movement.
As far as is known, no commercial clock ever used this type of display, though it is compact and efficient. Its meter scale shares the same principles with the slide rule."
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...We finish with something altogether wild:
A hair dryer from the Twenties:
(found by Bluefenox)