‘Vanishing Japan’ asks what is lost when buildings fall
Taisekiji Shohondo temple with a view of Mount Fuji | © JAVIER VIVES
Oct 24, 2026
The urban fabric of Japanese cities changes at a remarkable pace.
Naomi Pollock, an architect and architectural critic, explores this phenomenon in her latest book, “Vanishing Japan,” a visual archive of demolished architectural masterpieces of the 20th century.
“There’s an experience that anyone who’s lived in Tokyo has: One day you’re walking down the street and you realize a building that you’ve passed by every single day is gone,” she says.
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KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.