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Curzon
Author

Curzon

Date

May 9th, 2006

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I discovered this shot flipping through my travel photos and thought I’d put this to readers: anyone want to guess where this was taken?

(I depart Japan for the US in 24 hours; I’ll post the answer before I leave.)

Comments to this entry

carpetblogger
May 10, 2006
6:37 am
Dubai?
Curzon
May 10, 2006
1:25 pm
No other takers?
moorethanthis
May 10, 2006
3:09 pm
Middle East is too obvious. I'd say it's somewhere in Southern Europe/Asia Minor, like Turkey.
Admiral
May 10, 2006
4:22 pm
Western China? Trying to cover the unexpected bases here...
Bhaskar
May 10, 2006
9:04 pm
Its ottomen.. so Asia Minor.. but Im going to go on a limb and say Venice... I know but that city has a lot of Ottoman / eastern empire influence
rude_brit
May 10, 2006
9:22 pm
Turkey (and my nosey neighbor went as far as to say Istanbul)
Curzon
May 10, 2006
10:07 pm
"The Yokohama Customs Building.":http://www.yokohama-customs.go.jp/ (That's in Japan -- east of Mt. Fuji and south of Tokyo.)

Also known as the "Queen's Tower," the current Yokohama Customs building was completed in 1934 by Tori Yoshitaka, who also designed Japan's Parliament building.

!http://www.k2.dion.ne.jp/~so-dara/LOVELOG_IMG/M200503061b2acea9.jpg!
Japan's Parliament (Diet) Building

None of the above guesses are surprising. There was a brief trend in the early Showa period (i.e. 1920s-1930s) towards Islamic architecture and so-called "Eastern" buildings. Modern Japanese architecture up until then, during the Meiji and Taisho eras (1860s-1920s), was directly influenced by modern Victorian/Western architecture. Examples: "Tokyo Station,":http://www.raglanroad.org/weblog/archives/DSC01852%20copy.jpg "Doshisha University,":http://www.americanstudies.msu.edu/image/image-programs/studyabroad/doshisha01.jpg and "others.":http://www.photokichi.com/architecture/meiji.html

More information (in Japanese) "here,":http://www.yokohama-customs.go.jp/zeikan/queen.htm which are worth a look to see pictures of Yokohama's "Three Towers" built before World War II.