About Teikuhiko (Low altitude, high resolution tour)

Teikuhiko is not about airplane travel. It’s a website introducing spots that I, Kenya Hara, have specially chosen, posing the question to visitors, "What do you think of this kind of Japan?" Because I have created the content, including location selection, photos, videos, text and editing, I take responsibility for maintaining the individuality and purity of the information. Teikuhiko is a figurative title indicating the altitude at which you can view the landscape fully, with the image of touring Japan in both depth and detail; it’s a vision that concentrates on the core of Japan’s charm and appeal.

The future resources of Japan are its natural features, which have undergone much change, and its store of culture, accumulated over its more than one thousand, several hundred years of existence as a single country. Seventy percent of this archipelago, surrounded by the sea, is covered with mountains and forests. The mountains nurture abundant water, and the volcanic belt gives us gushing hot springs where these waters come to the surface. The lodgings, which have contributed to the nurturing and development of both architectural design and the art of hospitality, offer competitive stages for the practice of techniques of Japanese cuisine, which has been designated by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage. Both manufacturing and craftsmanship have also grown and developed, cultivated along with local materials deeply tied to the land.

Design is the work of ascertaining the differences among things or experiences, then creating value by managing those differences. Therefore, this project is an attempt to provide a new kind of tourism, one that highlights the value of Japan’s ability to contribute to the abundance of the world within a global context. What is the source of value? Let’s take a journey together, through this site, and visualize the Japan of tomorrow.

Movie / Photograph / Text : Kenya HARA
Music : Heima