A collection of gorgeous prints, apparel and products celebrating the Pharaoh Dental Clinic in Kyoto from 1984, one of Shin Takamatsu's masterpieces of Japanese bubble-era architecture.

In Kyoto’s quiet inner suburbs, Shin Takamatsu’s Pharaoh Dental Clinic stands as a menacing, mechanical deity carved from the fever-dreams of the Japanese Bubble era. Completed in 1984, it is a masterpiece of architectural symbolism, where orthodontic practice is housed within a structure resembling a high-tech sarcophagus or a stationary locomotive from a dystopian future. With its rows of gleaming, fin-like protrusions and rhythmic, metallic ribs, Pharaoh eschews the clinical for the cinematic. It is architecture as weaponry—a dense, obsidian monument to Japan’s brief, hyper-saturated flirtation with a terrifyingly beautiful techno-mysticism.

Shin Takamatsu is one of Japan’s greatest architects, with an incredibly unique & beautifully executed body of mysterious & pregnant work that ought to be far better known, & probably would be if they fit a more stereotypical idea of Japanese design... 

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