Hallowe’en is over but this fantastic Japanese raccoon figure survives. I wish it could stay there all winter. It was seen at this cool little bungalow – brick, which is unusual for Vancouver – a block away from the studio. The owners refurbished it and landscaped it themselves, but I was still taken aback by their pumpkin carving skills.

PS Addendum to this post: Scott Plumbe, the carver of this tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog) pumpkin, wrote in to say he took a night photo of it below and he has kindly let me add it here (see link for story). Farther below that is the “No Face” pumpkin carved by his wife Rosemary a few years ago. No Face is a character in my favourite animated film of all time, Spirited Away by Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Scott, not surprisingly, turns out to be a professional illustrator. This is an interesting way to meet your neighbours. See also this post on a house a few doors down from Scott and Rosemary’s.

Terunobu Fujimori has been called the world’s only “surreal architect.” This is obviously not true, but there is a fantastical quality about his work that isn’t typical among architects, even when they’re trying for the new, the strange or the sci-fi. Fujimori is interesting because his is a down-to-earth fantasy, using simple, elemental materials that highlight the relationship of architecture to the ground from which its materials come. He’s not a traditionalist even despite the fact that you feel you can see all of Japanese architectural history in his work, both high and low, from traditional peasant houses to folk tales to the fortresses in Ran or Rashomon. For more about him see also pushpull. Fujimori curated a celebrated exhibition in the Japanese pavilion at the 2006 Venice Biennale of Architecture that’s worth looking at here. Photos are from Flickr and designboom. Immediately above and below, Fujimori’s Coal House, sheathed in satiny black charred wood that is a traditional method of fiinishing and preserving wood but that also somehow suggests the fires that destroyed so many of Japan’s wooden castles and houses.

Above, Nemunoki Art Museum by Terunobu Fujimori and Yoshio Uchika. Below, his Leek House, with a lattice roof with chives growing from it.

The building below with the dead trunks growing through and the look of a medieval Japanese wooden fortress is the Akino Fuku Museum.

More information on Fujimori below.

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Minimalism and fantasy, together. The interior of this teahouse is simple and modern, while the fantastical exterior looks like something from a Hiyao Miyazaki film. The interior view of the sliding wooden doors or shutters is just beautiful. The building is a Japanese teahouse by Terunobu Fujimori, who represented Japan at the Venice Biennale, in Yamanashi Prefecture. The photographs are by Dana + Leroy. The hatch in the floor is the entrance.

Click below for more photos of the Tetsu Teahouse and the similar “Too High Teahouse.”

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