Architectural Apocalypse Ryuji Miyamoto

This is a photobook published in 1988 by Japanese photographer Ryuji Miyamoto, capturing the forms of domestic and international ruins and buildings undergoing demolition through his unique perspective.

Miyamoto previously studied in the Graphic Design Department at Tama Art University. After graduating, he worked as an editor for an architecture magazine while exploring his path as a photographer.

During this period, in 1983, he encountered the demolition site of the brick prison in Nakano, Tokyo, and was profoundly impacted. For the next six months, he continuously photographed the site up close, capturing the ever-changing appearance of the structure as demolition progressed.

Encouraged by this experience, Miyamoto subsequently visited and photographed buildings constructed for various uses and purposes both in Japan and abroad.

This book features a bilingual Japanese-English text by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki as its preface. It includes photographs taken at sites worldwide, starting with the Nakano Prison that initiated Miyamoto's photographic journey, followed by the former beer factory on the site of the present Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Berlin's Grand Theater in Germany, Bax Power Station in England, and Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, once called the “East Asian den of iniquity.”

Through Miyamoto's dispassionate gaze and precise compositions, free of sentimentality, these photographs capture the ephemeral essence of architecture.