The surrounding city lighting cast a yellow-orange hue onto the concrete exterior. Unyielding, the textured surface diffused the glow, breaking it into scattered patterns that accentuated its grooves, ridges, and imperfections. This interaction softened the brightness, creating a muted and gentle luminescence. The material appeared to be board-formed concrete—a technique where wooden boards act as moulds, leaving the grain's distinct texture imprinted on the surface during the pour.

Board-formed concrete is commonly associated with modernist architectural styles, but the structure I was observing was a Shinto shrine. Its solidity and weight exuded a grounding presence, standing firm at the northeast corner of a densely packed grid of side streets and alleyways. In the distance, the merriment of suited workers drifted through the air as they released the week's tension. Cheer echoed from the numerous small-scale drinking and dining establishments through a jumble of lantern-lit facades and tangled overhead cabling.

Meanwhile, I watched a steady stream of visitors pass beneath the shrine's gate. I have a particular fondness for shrines at night. Many Shinto outposts, especially those in residential areas, close their gates in the evening, their precincts inaccessible to nocturnal wanderers. Only a few lanterns remain aglow, guiding the spirits through the darkness. But in the commercial heart of Tokyo, amidst towering buildings and nightlife, a shrine will often keep its grounds open late. 

That night, a side street illuminated by red lanterns in the distance had enticed me into the inner layers of a ring of mixed-use zakkyō (雑協) buildings adorned with neon signage and advertisements. Shielded by the multi-storey structures, I walked through three narrow alleys lined with shorter, two-storey buildings stretching westward from the shrine's approach. Some years later, I came across Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City, where Jorge Almazán and Studiolab identify this network of alleys as the Karasumori Block, highlighting it as a prime example of the urban phenomenon known as yokochō (横丁) alleyways.