#DaysInJapan: Kannaigai OPEN! 8 Yokohama

Another fieldtrip brought me to visited another prefecture outside Tokyo: Yokohama. In the fieldtrip, we visited some interesting places that arranged in a open city event. Holding an open city event is a new way to attract more visitors to the city while develop the community. By this kind of event, many people will come and see what are the community, or in this case the companies, business, shops, factories, or agencies; doing while the companies also promoting their stuffs and self. Not only the people, but both the city and the companies are gain many advantages in this kind of event.

The example of the open city event held in Japan was Kannaigai OPEN! 8. Kannaigai OPEN! 8 is an open city event that held in only 2 days, November 5th and 6th 2016 in Yokohama. This event was held every year and this year event was the 8th. In Kannaigai OPEN we could see the art, design, architecture, and creative events around Yokohama. The concept of the event was gathering the artist and creators of the city. Then together they will raise the city by exchanging the values with citizens, companies, and others by sharing what they doing. This event was held by the Arts Commission of Yokohama.


Kannaigai is literally means ‘inside and outside’ in Japanese. In Kannaigai OPEN, people could enter the workplace of an artist or creators in a design studio and had a creative activity and experience what they really doing behind their works. There were so many studios are open. And once it has a Kannaigai OPEN sign in the front of their studio, every people were allowed to enter and join the activity. Beside the inside/indoor activity, they also had some festival on the road called Road Park Festival.



We attended the first day of Kannaigai OPEN! 8 which was on November 5th 2016. The first studio that we entered was Yokohama Canvas Bag studio. The people who registered on the activity could experience the activity of making a custom canvas bag by themselves that can be customize from the type, color, size, and shape.

The second studio is NDC Graphics, that produced character named ‘Blue Dal’. The NDC Graphic studio is the design studio that is produced many kinds of design product. The studio, which is still in the same building with the Yokohama Canvas Bag, is very unique and cozy. At there, they displayed various product that have a Blue Dal character on it which is a blue-dotted white dog.

The next place is Utoc Corporation in 4F of Utsuno building. In that studio, there was a hands-on activity which was making flat animals models by cardboard and paper which named ‘Art Zoo’. The activity was freely joined by everybody, but commonly joined by childrens. Utoc corporation itself is an architecture designer studio, and we could see so many maquette/models showed in the studio. We also can see the workers doing their work at the studio. In this floor, there were so many studio rooms that showed the architectural models product.







The next studio that also an architectural studio was Mikan-gumi. In this studio room, there was a talk show about future eco-friendly building by the owner of the studio. We could sit and listen to the talk show and we got a postcard once we entered this studio. In this studio, we also could see many models of the architecture.



Next, we visited a landscape architecture studio called Studio Genkumagai (STGK) open studio. In this studio, we could see the power point presentation that shows the works of this studio. There were so many awesome works such as parks and other open air landscapes. Their works were inspired by nature and they had fresh and innovative design ideas. This was the most interesting studio of whole studio tour for me because I’m also majoring in landscape architecture. The other interesting thing in this studio was no one of the studio worker had a bachelor of landscape architecture. Most of them are majoring in fine art or design. After I visited this open studio, I became really want to work in this kind of studio.



The last destination is an 86 years old historical building which we could experience the ancient Japanese tea ceremony inside. The building was a preserved imperial building that was once a foreign dormitory. But inside that, in the 4th floor, there was a small tea room that still follows the ancient Japanese tea ceremony rules. The example is the room door that so small, about 50 X 50 cm rectangle hole that made us bowed deep when we entering the room. And then there were also some ornaments like a bamboo fence, tatami (bamboo pad), Chinese calligraphy, and so on. We learnt the history of the tea ceremony and also the philosophy of every objects and activity.

 Thanks for reading!


Know more about Kannaigai OPEN! 8 here kannaigai.yafjp.org/kannaigai8/event

(some part are written for open city event fieldtrip report from the Exercise on Commuity Development trough Tourism course by Tokyo Metropolitan University)

(mandatory) picture bonus!
another interesting places to visit in Yokohama:

Yokohama China town

Cosmo World Yokohama cosmo clock 21 ferris wheel

(just) as background