Narrow Buildings Photo 17, Akihabara

For centuries, the Japanese people excelled at living in small spaces, a lady from a Japanese museum once told me with pride, while explaining the life in the row houses. Living in small spaces has a certain charm and the Japanese people certainly know how to make the best of it. I understand this quite well, I arranged my own house to optimize the space... so I feel a certain connection with them.

It was only a step from the small row houses to the tall narrow buildings... here are two such narrow buildings, discovered in Akihabara, close to the Yanagimori Shrine. Extreme space optimization, considering the fact that there's also a garage on the first floor: