Old and new architecture, Kokura Castle and RiverWalk Kitakyushu

Today's Japan is a country that cherishes its past and its cultural inheritance, but at the same time is one of the most-advanced countries in the world. This is true for architecture as well, and there are many examples of traditional and modern architecture standing side-by-side.

I took this photo in Kokura, Kitakyushu, a place that once was a castle town developed around the Kokura Castle. Destroyed in 1866, the castle was reconstructed in 1959 with a modified, more spectacular design than the original construction.

The other constructions in this photo are part of the modern complex RiverWalk Kitakyushu, a project conceived to create a new identity for Kitakyushu. Thus, all the colors of the RiverWalk buildings were selected to signify important aspects of the Japanese culture: the white of the plaster walls, the red of the Japanese lacquer, the yellow of the rice fields and the black of the roof tiles. An interesting architectural project, awarded in 2001 the International Architecture Award...