Hirayama, masterfully played by actor Kōji Yakusho in Wim Wenders' latest film, Perfect Days, nominated for an Oscar as best international film, is a sixty-year-old cleaner of public toilets in Tokyo.
Every day he follows the same routine: he gets up in the morning without the alarm ringing, puts away the futon, washes himself, takes care of the plants, puts on his blue overalls with The Tokyo Toilet written on them, takes a can of coffee, goes up in the van and goes to the first bathroom to clean.
While driving Hirayama always listens to the usual music by Lou Reed or Patti Smith, which begins when he sees, beyond the windshield, the Tokyo Skytree, the tower of his neighborhood.
Once the cleaning round is finished, returning home he washes in a public bathroom, stops in the usual place and before going to sleep he reads a book.
The next day he starts all over again with the usual professionalism and dedication.
In a very modern and technologically cutting-edge Tokyo, the protagonist, mild and shy, carves out a space of his own, made up of cassette tapes, books and film photographs.
A world of simple and silent gestures, repetitive but resolute and beautiful, where the absence of technology slows down the pace of life and makes relationships with others less superficial.
The whole Japanese culture of order, cleanliness, confidentiality and above all respect for the public good emerges from the film.
Among the symbols of this culture, the toilets designed by famous architects and designers which are found exceptionally all together in the lively Shibuya district and which stand out for their unique and refined style.
In 2018 the Nippon Foundation, which finances philanthropic projects, created the Tokyo Toilet Project, created to encourage the use of public toilets and dispel the opinion that they were dirty and dangerous places.
So 16 international creatives of the caliber of Kengo Kuma and Tadao Andō were asked to design a public bathroom that resembled a work of art: 17 truly irresistible ones were born in the most futuristic and trendy neighborhood of the capital.
Among the star architects who contributed to the relaunch of Shibuya's public toilets, Ban Shigeru, winner of the 2014 Pritzker prize for architecture, who created two unique bathrooms: one in the Yoyogi Fukamachi Mini Park with glass in shades of pink, orange and violet and the other in the Haru-no-Ogawa Community Park with the blue and green windows.
Both are at the cutting edge of technology with the toilet equipped with a spray nozzle for the bidet, the heating tablet and a hi-tech keyboard to manage various other functions, in addition to the glass which goes from transparent to opaque when the lock is closed.
The windows are essential to immediately understand if the bathroom is clean - and here it is always clean - and if there is someone inside.
Then, at night, the structures illuminate the park, making it less isolated.
Hi toilet is the public toilet, created by Kazoo Sato, with a spherical shape and very high technology: here everything is contactless and voice-controlled, without the need to touch anything, thus making it the most hygienic bathroom in the world.
Nao Tamura's toilet - Higashi Sanchome - is inspired by the art of origami and is divided into three separate spaces to welcome people safely and confidentially, regardless of age and sexual identity.
In Nabeshima Shoto park, architect Kengo Kuma has designed a toilet, renamed 'walk in the woods', which combines five huts covered with reclaimed cedar wood slats, immersed in the park, a sort of open and ventilated village of public toilets, connected between them from comfortable walkways.
Amayadori is the toilet designed by Tadao Andō, safe and comfortable, in the shape of a cylinder with vertical shutters and a circular plan as a roof to better feel the wind and light of the surrounding environment.
To discover all the designer public toilets in the neighborhood: tokyotoilet.jp/en
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