Tomoyuki Tanaka renders the intricacies of some of the world’s busiest train stations by hand.

From the outside, Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station is sleek: geometric, and rendered in cool grays.

Inside, it’s a labyrinth. One of the world’s busiest and biggest transit hubs, over 3.64 million people pass through the station’s 36 platforms, 200 exits, and maze of tunnels each day.  

Dismantling of Shinjuku Station.
Dismantling of Shinjuku Station. © Tomoyuki Tanaka

It would be easy to get lost in Shinjuku’s intricacies, but in his precise drawings of the structures, the architect Tomoyuki Tanaka dives right in and renders each detail. 

Tanaka was first commissioned to draw Shinjuku Station in 2005 by the Japanese architecture magazine Shotenkenchiku. “Dismantling of Shinjuku Station,” along with several other of Tanaka’s studies, is on display at the Tokyo gallery 21_21 Design Sight through the end of September as part of Doboku: Civil Engineering, an exhibit devoted to the city’s complex infrastructure.