Tokyo showcases its future without suppressing its origins. For me, this image is a perfect example: the Tokyo Tower behind two traditional temple roofs – modern metropolis and millennia-old culture side-by-side, not as opposites, but as a natural part of the same city.

Completed in 1958 and inspired by the Eiffel Tower, the Tokyo Tower itself stands like few other structures for Japan’s emergence into the modern era.

Tokyo is defined by vast, ultra-modern architecture. In Ginza, Roppongi, or around Tokyo Station, glass facades, lights, traffic, and gigantic towers dominate the scene. As a visitor, one can be so overwhelmed by this backdrop that one almost overlooks the small things alongside it.

And it is precisely these small things that, for me, often tell much more about Japan than the spectacular backdrop alone. Japan showcases its culture – and visibly embraces it, rather than pushing it out of the cityscape.

The Tokyo Tower is located in Shiba-kōen, a green, almost tranquil oasis in the middle of bustling Tokyo. Even there, you encounter something that constantly fascinates me about Japan: this natural symbiosis of tradition and modernity.

Next to a modern high-rise stands an old shrine; between new buildings, a traditional roof suddenly appears. Culture and heritage retain their place—even in the middle of a city that is building toward the future at tremendous speed. As a photographer, I therefore walk through such a city with completely different eyes.

With a camera, you search more precisely: for details, unusual lines, and situations in which seemingly contradictory elements come together in a single image. 

I practically walked all the way around Tokyo Tower, searching for a perspective that showed more than the classic view of this famous structure. My circuit was almost complete.

Before me lay the old, traditional roofs, and rising behind them was the 333-meter-tall Tokyo Tower – large, technical, modern. Now I just had to find the right framing so that both layers retained their impact and this unusual combination felt natural.

Perhaps that is exactly one of the things that fascinates me so much about Japan: a modern metropolis can look forward and still visibly show where it comes from.
Two historic roofs.


One Tokyo Tower. 
One image.
Expedition in Light.