If you thought the Tokyo Toilets were beautiful in the daytime, just wait ’til you see them lit up after dark! The public restrooms that were so mindfully cleaned by the main character in Wim Wenders’ film Perfect Days were designed by sixteen famous Japanese architects, and if there’s one thing famous architects know how to do, it’s light up their work to the best advantage. Feast your eyes on these beauties shining in the night!
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Toilet #1: Sasazuka Greenway
designed by Junko Kobayashi\Gondola Architects
This one doesn’t look so different at night—it sits in the shadow of a giant train station even by day—but the little rabbit windows and moon are all lit up at night, and the pint-size sink, toilet and urinal in the kids’ bathrooms are just as cute after dark!
Map warning: The maps I’m posting with each toilet are Google maps to that toilet alone, and once you click on it, you can’t click back to this post. If you’d like to keep this guide open to pursue the next toilet on the list, click on the purple button up above that takes you to a map of all seventeen toilets and keep it open in the maps app instead of clicking on the map link after each individual toilet.
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Toilet #2: Hatagaya
designed by UTokyo DLX Design Lab/Miles Pennington
This one still looks like a frame without a picture inside—that big empty space is intended to be a place for the community to view art displays or watch films projected on the big white walls—but lit up at night it does look like a nice, safe place to meet someone or wait to cross the intersection if it’s raining.
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Toilet #3: Nanago-dori Park
designed by Kazoo Sato/Disruption Lab Team
Love this one during the day, love it even more at night.
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Toilet #4: Nishihara Itchome Park
designed by Takenosuke Sakakura
This one is so much more spectacular at night, I could hardly believe it. Not only does it glow invitingly, you can see the “tree shadows” etched into the glass walls from the outside, as well as the inside.
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Toilet #5: Nishisando
designed by Sou Fujimoto
As much as I love this toilet, I’m going to say the play of light and shadows is more interesting during the day. It’s still amazingly beautiful at night, though…
And the outdoor faucets are awesome at any hour.
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Toilet #6: Yoyogi Hachiman
designed by Toyo Ito
This distinctive cluster of “mushroom” toilets are a lot prettier at night, because they’re in a sort of grotty, high-traffic location, and the excellently bright lighting does more than just make them look pretty. These bathrooms create a little island of warmth and safety in a somewhat dark and forbidding corner of Tokyo.
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Toilet #7: Haru-no-Ogawa Community Park
designed by Shigeru Ban
This famous set of colorful glass-walled toilets (and the matching trio on the next block) are the ones made of tinted glass that’s transparent until you lock the door, then it becomes opaque. This magic only works from April to September though, because if it’s too cold, the glass takes forever to change into a state that delivers privacy and they set it to be permanently opaque. I was sorry not to be here at the time of year the glass is transparent, but discovered that at night, the frosted version is a much more colorful and splendid sight!
Plus, how excellent is this? Inside, there’s an infinity of toilets. Does that mean this bathroom will never have a line, even during cherry blossom season?
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Toilet #8: Yoyogi Fukamachi Mini Park
designed by Shigeru Ban
Here’s the matching—and equally beautiful—set in the park on the next block.
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Toilet #9: Urasando
designed by Marc Newson
Isn’t this one nice at night? During the day, it blends in with its concrete underpass surroundings, but at night it becomes a beacon of cleanliness and soothing relief.
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Toilet #10: Jingumae
designed by NIGO
This cottagecore beauty is also a bright spot in the Shibuya night, its friendly face promising rest—or at least a restroom—for the weary.
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Toilet #11: Jingu-dori
designed by Tadao Ando
During the day, the silhouette of Tadao Ando’s toilet looks like a whimsical magician’s upturned hat, ready for a rabbit to pop out. But at night, the interior spaces are in the spotlight…
and even the shadows point the way to the inner goodness.
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Toilet #12: Nabeshima Shoto Park
designed by Kengo Kuma
This is also one I liked better during the daytime, because the children racing around the playground seemed to match the playful feeling of the dancing sticks, but if I were walking home from the train station late at night, I’d be very cheered to see those spotlights pointing to a public relief station amid this otherwise dark residential neighborhood.
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Toilet #13: Higashi Sanchome
designed by Nao Tamura
This toilet situated on an impossibly narrow sliver of land is pretty excellent during the day, but at night it’s truly breathtaking! (I’ll spare you the 7,999 other photos I took of it before remembering there were other toilets on my list…)
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Toilet #14: Ebisu Park
designed by Masamichi Katayama
This toilet looks like a piece of public sculpture by day, but at night you can see how the lighting of the mens’/universal access entrance (above) and the women’s entrance (below)…
blur the line between exterior spaces and its interior.
As skillfully as traditional Japanese dwellings make the garden seem like an extension of the house, you don’t notice when the sky is overhead becomes a ceiling.
Also, big points for lighting up the icons for men and women outside the entrances, so the all-you-can-drink partiers at Ebisu bars don’t stumble into the wrong one in the dark.
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Toilet #15: Ebisu Station West Exit
designed by Kashiwa Sato
This one really seems to float when it’s lit up at night!
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Toilet #16: Ebisu East Park
designed by Fumihiko Maki
This toilet is an understated and sedate homage to traditional temple architecture by day, but at night the translucent glass sections come alive and reveal it to be an intricately folded piece of origami…
and highlight the playful red backs of the handwashing stations that make reference to the giant octopus slide in the park.
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Toilet #17: Hiroo East Park
designed by Tomohito Ushiro
With no billboards and brightly lit restaurants anywhere near, this toilet that beams out a “here’s a nice clean restroom!” has undoubtedly rescued many a commuter trudging home through this quiet residential neighborhood late at night.
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If you’d like to visit them all, here’s a link to A Perfect Tokyo Toilet Day or you can find it on The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had
in the Seven Perfect Days in Tokyo section
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Wow. Thanks. Has it really become a thing? D 💕Sent from my iPhone
Wow, so beautiful! Thanks.
I want to know how many days it took you to trot around Tokyo documenting all of these magnificent facilities! I bet that’s not on the Hato bus tour.