It has been a busy year end. No slowdown whatsoever on my end as I make my way through the last week of the year in the office. Because I love what I do so much (I’m grateful for that), I have a habit of getting completely absorbed in my work. That’s a good thing, but it also means I probably neglect other things, like I have with my Christmas shopping this year.

So I’m looking forward to the holiday slowdown so that I can spend more time with family and friends, workout more, and dedicate more time to this blog and photography. 

I’m also going to be traveling after Christmas. And since I’ve been feeling lately that I need to challenge myself more with this blog, expect it to skew toward a travel/photoblog for about a week. I am sure it will still relate to many of the topics that we regularly discuss on this blog. Or maybe it won’t.

What are your plans for the holidays?

It’s late. I just got home from the office. And I’m exhausted.

But I did just receive my copy of Toronto Architecture: A City Guide. The “handbook” was originally written by Patricia McHugh (1934-2008), but it was recently updated by Globe and Mail architecture critic Alex Bozikovic. (Also, shout out to Vik Pahwa for the terrific photos he took for this guide.)

When I opened the book, one of the first things that stood out for me were these two lines:

Toronto has in fact rebuilt itself over and over again.

This book is, in part, a tool to understand that story.

In my view, this is one of the biggest compliments that you can pay to a city. Cities should not be static entities. Because if they are, then they will inevitably fail. Change must be a constant.

As I read through the guide, that wonderful spirit of reinvention is abundantly clear. But I think the real way to experience this handbook is on the streets of Toronto – and probably with a good camera. That’s why it’s called a handbook. 

The book is primarily structured around 26 distinct walking tours, each of which could be covered off in an afternoon. Along each tour, Patricia and Alex point out which buildings you should be focused on and provide pithy, yet insightful, comments for each.

I believe that the more you know, the more you can appreciate. So if you’re interested in architecture and/or Toronto, I would you encourage you to think about getting a copy. And if you’re interested in going on a walking tour, tweet at me.

Last summer, photographer Parker Woods spent two weeks walking over 100 miles in Tokyo with a peach-colored (”momo” in Japanese) backdrop and a metal c-stand. He used this accessory to “contextualize his first encounter with Japanese culture.”

In some cases, it functions as you would expect: as a backdrop for the new people that he encountered along his walking journey. 

But in other cases, the backdrop is simply inserted into the urban environment. Sometimes rolled up amongst a pile of metal tubes. And sometimes fully erected in the middle of a busy road.

This is an interesting photography project based in one of my favorite cities in the world, and so I wanted to share it on the blog. All of his photos were shot on Kodak film. It’s also giving me some ideas for my own photos.

If you’d like to buy a copy of the book ($40), you can do that here. There’s a limited run of only 250 copies. If you’d like to read a bit more about the project (and see a few additional photos), you can do that here on VSCO.

Image: Parker Woods