F.I.L. GINZA

The new F.I.L. store, which opened in Ginza 1-chome October 2023, is located inside a renovated three-story building originally built in 1932 that stands along Showa-dori.  It is a small modern structure that is the only one like it remaining along a main street that is now lined with taller buildings.  The ocher colored decorative tile on the exterior is particularly notable and charming.  It seems the building was originally an oil shop (abura-ya), which has undergone a fair amount of change over the course of its 90-year history.  When it came to turning the space into a store, we decided the renovations would attempt to incorporate as much of the original appearance as possible. 

One of these original elements was the vertical sliding windows of which there were presumably several on each floor at one time.  Many of them had been replaced with modern windows, however a few of the original windows were still intact at the back end of the building, which we referenced and had a metal craftsman we found make new sashes by recreating the designs used for the original windows.  Additionally, some of the decorative tiles on the exterior wall were damaged, but fortunately we were able to restore them by locating a workshop that was able to make similar tiles using almost the same method as back then to create the same characteristic unevenness found in the original scratch tiles.  The finishing was so good that it was pretty much indistinguishable from the original work, and I was happy to discover that these old techniques were still alive in Japan.

When the ceiling was peeled away inside the building, a wooden structural frame revealed itself.  The cedar beams that lined the ceiling had letters on them that appear to have been written by carpenters and lumber vendors from that time.  There were also traces of what looked like rough marks that were left by a handsaw.  Things that are made by human hands tend to exude something like the character of the person who created it.  I am drawn to things like that, so we decided to leave these marks visible in the new space.

The stairs were built by carpenters from "Sankakuya" a group in Kyoto that fabricates Japanese architecture.  The handrails are finished using the "naguri" method, which is characterized by a unique set of marks that are scraped and left on the surface of the squared timber by an adze (chouna).  The small green space by the entrance of the shop intends to emphasize the preexisting large tree that displays foliage in the fall and is tended to by Master Gardener, Sadao Yasumoro.

In the past Ginza had many buildings that gave off a sense of history similar to this one, but today those kinds of structures are fewer in number.  I feel that the charm of any city is created by the reality of the activity taking place there and actioned by the people who live and work there.  When thinking about what kind of space this store would become, it was not in my interest to just superficially restore its former appearance on the outside, but rather to restore the reality of the humans that were present there.  It is my wish to create something that has an intrinsic appeal to us as people living today, and not just something that could become a tourist attraction or a collection in a museum.  Not just to preserve, but to make adjustments when necessary, in order to continue using with the right amount of care.

F.I.L. GINZA

1-20-17 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

+81 (0)3 3528 6500

Text: Kosuke Ide

Photo: Keisuke Fukamizu

2024.6.30 Republished with revisions
2023.10.06 Original work published