A collection of gorgeous prints, apparel and products celebrating the iconic Syntax building in Kyoto by Shin Takamatsu, typical figurative and powerfully composed, built in 1990, and sadly demolished in 2009

In the dense urban fabric of Kyoto, Syntax rose like a strident, muscular, cybernetic organism—a jagged testament to the peak of Shin Takamatsu’s "machine-aesthetic" genius. More a mechanical super-weapon than a shopping mall, its facade was a rhythmic, shimmering circuit-board of glittering metallic strips, concrete fins and protruding pipes, evoking the internal circuitry of an architectural cyborg. It was a monument to the hyper-saturated excess of the Bubble’s (Japan's era of hyper-growth) end, a structure that didn't just house commerce but aggressively broadcast an unnervingly dense composite of intractable and incommensurable symbolisms. Syntax was a fleeting, beautiful monster; a cinematic vision of a future that has already since become ancient history.

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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