This publication is the result of a collaboration between international and Japanese authors and makers from various disciplines, ranging from art to social science and from urban studies to design. What they have in common is their interest and fascination with cities, and in particular Tokyo’s urban culture.

This eclectic group grew from an international urban research and exploration workshop on Tokyo organised by Amsterdam-based studio Monnik and hosted by Tokyo’s SHIBAURA HOUSE exactly 3 years ago, on 30 October 2012. Everybody’s efforts resulted in the essay’s, maps, photo essay’s, collage’s, poem’s, manga’s, illustrations and observation’s that have been collected in this book that is hard to categorize. It is called a guide, not because it helps you to find places to see, or places to eat or drink, but because it helps you to read and see the city differently. Each contribution let’s you experience a different city. You may look at the city through the eyes of a bathhouse connoisseur, a host, an architect, a topographer, a flaneur, a konbini anthropologist, a foreigner, an artist or a child. In a way each author is a guide, and thus this guide book is reality 46 guidebooks. Amongst your ‘guides’ are social design researcher Atsushi Miura, Tokyo Urban Basin Society president Norihisa Minagawa, architect Julian Worrall, architect Julian Worrall, artist Arne Hendriks, editor Kohei Fukazawa, architect Yasutaka Yoshimura, visual artist Jan Rothuizen, urbanism professor Christian Dimmer, anthropologist Gavin H. Whitelaw, bathhouse connoisseur Greg Dvorak and many others.

Learn more about this book, and check out the general information, table of contents, introduction and some selected sample material from the book. And come to the book launch and the opening of the Tokyo Totem on October 30th.