Edge conditions - Formal and Social Boundaries of Public Spaces in Tokyo and Japan

EDGE CONDITIONS

SUMMER 2016

Formal and Social Boundaries of Public Space in Tokyo and Japan

Pratt Institute Programs for Sustainable Planning and Development PLAN 782A - Tokyo Planning and Urbanism Professor Jonathan Martin, Ph.D. AICP

EDGE CONDITIONS

Maggie Clark Lucia De la Mora Aswitha Kadekar Karina Leung Neelu Marigoudar Facundo Nunez Chris Riley Jim Shelton Petr Vancura

Formal and Social Boundaries of Public Space in Tokyo and Japan

Jonathan Martin Alexa Fabrega

SUMMER 2016

Pratt Institute Programs for Sustainable Planning and Development PLAN 782A - Tokyo Planning and Urbanism Professor Jonathan Martin, Ph.D. AICP

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS COURSE & TRAVEL CONTRIBUTORS Jonathan Martin Alexa Fabrega Namiko Martin ACADEMIC PARTNERS Dr. MURAO Osamu (International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS), Tohoku University) Dr. NAKAI Norihiro (Tokyo Institute of Technology) Mr. NAKAMURA Akira (Gensler) Dr. SASAKI Yoh (Waseda University) Dr. SHIMIZU Shigeatsu (Kyoto Institute of Technology) SHINGO Yamano (Koganecho Area management Center) SAORI Tateishi (Koganecho Area management Center)

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CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 TIMELINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 DISCUSSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu Ravi

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR IN JAPANESE PUBLIC SPACE . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Jim Shelton

COMMERCIAL EDGES AND THE PRODUCTION OF PUBLIC CULTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Maggie Clark

THE VOID AS ELEMENT OF CONFIGURATION ON THE URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL SPACE OF JAPAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Lucia de la Mora Colunga

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BOUNDARIES IN JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Facundo Nunez

SEARCHING FOR BOUNDARIES: SPATIAL ARTICULATION IN JAPAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Karina Leung

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

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INTRODUCTION Over the course of two weeks in June and July 2016, nine graduate students from the Pratt Institute’s Programs for Sustainable Planning and Development (PSPD) participated in a research trip to Japan in order to observe and document a variety of elements that define Japanese urban public spaces. Before departing for Japan, the students took part in a seminar course exploring the history, culture, and architecture of Japanese cities in order to prepare for their research.

With guidance from Professor Jonathan Martin as well as translation and cultural support from Alexa Fabrega, a former resident of Japan and a PSPD graduate, the students traveled to Tokyo, Kyoto, Sendai, and several other major cities during their time in Japan. The group participated in workshops with Japanese planning students, toured various neighborhoods as well as historic and culturally significant sites, met with Japanese architects, city planners, and developers, and participated in lectures and tours by professors of urban planning from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, the Kyoto Institute of Technology, Waseda University, and Tohoku University. Prior to the trip, the students collectively developed a research theme investigating the physical and social manifestations of edge conditions within and around public spaces to guide their data collection and observations while in Japan. This report is the result of that research.

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Jonathan Martin Alexa Fabrega Neelu Marigoudar Facundo Nunez Petr Vancura Jim Shelton Maggie Clark Karina Leung Lucia De la Mora Chris Riley Aswitha Kadekar

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NY Lectures

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Trip to Japan Final Report

Draft of the Report

Third Group Meeting

Second Group Meeting

First Group Meeting

Tokyo - Lecture at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Visit to Roppongi Hills Tokyo - Yamanote: Denenchofu, Japanese Garden City. Shinjuku.

Yokohama - Port City Waterfront & Urban Regeneration. Koganecho Bazaar Kyoto - Michiya Bicycle Tour.

Kyoto - Workshop with Kyoto Institute of Tech. Ryuhonji Temple Kyoto - Historic site visits Kyoto - Free day Tokyo - Workshop with Waseda University Sendai - Tohoku University Great East Earthquake & Tsunami Recovery Tour Sendai - Walking tour in Sendai City. Tohoku University IRIDeS Tokyo - Hikari Complex visit. Walking tour of Shibuya and Mukojima Tokyo - Free day Depart Tokyo - Arrive New York

Depart New York - Arrive Tokyo

Urbanism - Urban land Use and Planning: Theory, Process and Trends Urbanism - Urban Design and Development: Theory, Process and Trends

Geography, Demography & Economy History and Traditional Culture Contemporary Culture, Literature, Language and Etiquette Urbanism - Traditional Aesthetics, Architecture and Urban Form Urbanism - Contemporary Aesthetics, Architecture and Urban Form

TIMELINE

Group Report

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METHODOLOGY The brief nature of our trip to Japan and the fact we only travelled to select neighborhoods in Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto, and Sendai, limits the scope of our research. Ideally, these brief observations will serve as an introduction and a guide for further exploration and research.

The primary method by which we observed the urban landscape and documented the edge conditions of public spaces was through photography and architectural sketches of designated areas of interest. This process emphasized detailed and comprehensive observation, but attempted to avoid the imposition of a set of normative Western planning values in favor of objective and context-grounded reflection.

The initial period of qualitative research and data collection in Japan was supplemented by extensive literature review and additional research upon the group’s return to the United States. At that point, a comparative analysis between our observations of Japanese city planning and urban design, and Western planning paradigms was undertaken with the goal of understanding why theories of urbanism differ between the two cultures, and what the root causes of this difference may be.

Additionally, our research report attempts to identify the unique values of Japanese urban theory that may contribute to a more nuanced framework for understanding public space and cities that is not merely dominated by the prevailing standards of American and European schools of city planning and design.

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DISCUSSION The landscape of Japanese cities is alive with change and contradiction. Economic development and natural disasters rapidly paint and repaint new physical layers over the nation’s canvas, which is framed by a culture that has withstood the test of millennia. With no stagnant center upon which to focus, the research in this report will explore the edges that give shape to a picture of Japanese cities. These edges are manifest both physically and conceptually; they may be represented by gates that delineate a formal park or by the amount of space passersby give one another on a sidewalk. They are often in flux. This research will examine edge conditions in their myriad forms, considering the ways in which they may be defined in different contexts.

Physical edges are generally defined by the spaces and activities that they separate. A physical edge delineates space, both private and public, and it can act as a signal to users of the space that they are leaving one type of space and entering another. Social edges, as a separate category, define the boundaries of acceptable social behavior. They are symbols that indicate individual identity and communal behavior, often reflecting a social code that is understood by members of various communities. Both physical and social edges are inevitably informed by Japan’s rich cultural and political history, but they are also subject to change along with the fluctuating context of Japanese cities.

This research finds a particular interest in the the interaction between physical and social edges. Edges are explored as a symbols that, when viewed by a user, prompt or indicate a specific response or behavior. Even when the physical appearance of an edge is innovative or the behavior prompted expresses a new trend, the symbology of the edge often finds deep roots in the history and philosophy that created modern Japan. The researchers, largely new to this symbology, endeavored to objectively view edges as a tool to understand self in relation to the physical realm in this cultural setting.

Such positioning begins with a study of streets, the primary edge of urban space. Tokyo has an amazing array of streets filled with activity, and they offer important lessons about the ways that edges of public space can foster or inhibit human interaction. Four types of streets are examined in “MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS” on page 10: the traditional shopping street, the modern boulevard, the garden city street, and streets with bicycle facilities. Taken together, these examples demonstrate how a densely populated city can manage its edges in ways that offer a safe, pleasant experience for all users of the street.

Streets traverse the public and private realms, but these spheres require examination themselves. The distinctions between the roles of the public and private sector in the creation, management, and use of public spaces in cities represents a conceptual edge that reveals the unique values of Japanese urbanism. While Western planning often emphasizes lively public parks and plazas as a key tenet of urban design, Japanese cities generally and Tokyo in particular are comparatively lacking in both. “THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR IN JAPANESE PUBLIC SPACE” on page 29 explores how, in EDGE CONDITIONS

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DISCUSSION the absence of abundant public park space within the densely infilled city, gathering places for the public are commonly owned, designed, and programmed by the private sector. In this sense, the edge between public and private space in Japanese cities appears in many cases to dissolve completely.

Because public and private behavior are so distinct in Japan, however, another type of edge must also exist to indicate the acceptability of each behavior spaces that are not obviously public or private themselves. The occurrence of certain activities that are commonly relegated to the private realm may indicate of the level of ownership that a user feels over a space, regardless of who is legally in control. The privacy required for such autonomy is often diminished in spaces edged by commercial forces, which usually entails the manipulation of use and the creation of an atmosphere in which acceptable public behavior is more strictly defined and followed. In a city of long commutes and significant stretches of time away from home, Japanese residents have carved out spaces in their cities in which private behavior can be more freely exhibited. In “COMMERCIAL EDGES AND THE PRODUCTION OF PUBLIC CULTURE” on page 43, case studies of four types of spaces reveal the interplay between commercial edges, user autonomy, and public behavior.

Japan’s edges expressed in architectural form speak both to its history and to its contradictions.

“THE VOID AS ELEMENT OF CONFIGURATION IN THE URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL SPACE OF JAPAN,” on page 60, explores the tension between the pragmatic “designless” style of Tokyo and the sophistication of sacred and art spaces of Kyoto and Naoshima. The role of ‘void’ is an element that ties those two poles - the chaotic and the structured - and provides structure to the spatial configuration. Five case studies approach the subject from the perspective of different urban and architectural scales.

Looking beyond edges as an indicator of behavior, this research also delves into the roots of edges and considers why certain boundaries were built in the first place. The island nation, with a history of frequent natural disasters, has created a notion of the natural environment as a constant threat to be guarded against with boundaries. The chaos outside the boundaries is equated with the profane, while the calmness within the boundaries is likened to the spiritual realm. “PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BOUNDARIES IN JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE” on page 79 discusses the material and symbolic boundaries between the “inner space” and “outer space” in various contexts, delineating the sacred and the profane along with the public and private.

The ambiguity of physical boundaries to public spaces is due in part to a Japanese conception of space in an areal rather than linear manner. Other differences between Western and Japanese approaches to articulating space include a focus on the floor as a defining element and the establishment small-scale order. A distinctive relationship between self, space, and architecture affects the form of public space in Japan. By analysing three case studies that represent different public space typologies, “SEARCHING FOR BOUNDARIES: SPATIAL ARTICULATION IN JAPAN,” on page 87, explores the various ways in which space is understood and experienced in Japan.

The research contained in this report aims to explore the physical and social dimensions of Japanese cities as defined, sometimes concretely and often ambiguously, by these edges. A cross-disciplinary approach provides a multitude of perspectives and endeavors to capture the kaleidoscopic nature of Japan’s unique urban composition.

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu Ravi INTRODUCTION Human settlements have evolved through cultures adapting to meet human needs collectively as those needs change over time. In Japan a variety of circumstances have required radical changes, from internal and external invasions to a series of natural disasters. The responses to the changes have entailed a continual rethinking of Japan’s public spaces in general, and its streets in particular.

Older streets in Tokyo tend to be narrow and winding, with small shops lining each side. In the 20th century, models of other street types were imported from the west: grand avenues, highways, and the calmer streets of garden-city suburbs. More recently, some streets have been adapted to provide improved facilities for bicycles and pedestrians.

Source Chris Riley

FIGURE 1.1: Hatonomachi Dori, Tokyo

Through a series of lectures and readings, we were introduced to a whole different perspective about Japan’s streets, planning, and way finding techniques. Our opinions were questioned and changed once we landed in the Tokyo’s Narita International Airport on June 27th, 2016. Throughout our visit, we were awestruck by the diversity of city planning techniques observed in the city of Tokyo and all of Japan.

LITERATURE REVIEW Much of the contemporary writing on Tokyo’s streets focuses on the lack of a coherent, overarching form in the streets or in the city itself. Donald Richie, who has lived in Tokyo since 1947, writes that “an overall plan, a civic ordering of the city, is missing. There is no imposed and consequently logical pattern.”1 The streets can thus seem chaotic: “much of Tokyo is a grand warren, a twisted tangle of alleys and lanes.”2 The chaos, in Richie’s view, is part of the city’s appeal: “the enormous lack of standardized streets . . . creates its own kind of effect.”3 Richie’s analysis often takes the form of observations made while strolling the city, in the style of a flaneur.4

1

Donald Richie, Tokyo (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), 14.

2

Ibid., 39-40.

3

Ibid., 2.

4

See, e.g., ibid., 110 (“Strolling slowly, looking simply for the pleasure of it, one becomes what Baudelaire called a flaneur, an observer who has no reason for observing except the pleasure of observation.”)

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

Livio Sacchi, an architect and academic, agrees with Richie’s assessment. Tokyo, he writes, “is now a labyrinthine, magma-like whole, apparently built without order, hierarchy or form.”5 Its road network, in particular, is “impenetrable, confusing, and . . . practically lacks any large axes.”6 The confusion can be especially confounding around the city’s transit stations [T]he stations and their immediate surroundings tend to transmute into extensive multifunctional structures which take up considerable portions of the city with their multiple exits, their large areas for services, shopping and catering, and their colossal walls filled with advertisements. . . .

Even once you are outside, it is not always easy to identify what the basic street level is. Multiple levels are the norm; care speed by you and/or way below you, and you feel you are living in a futuristic sketch. In general, the notion of “ground floor” or “street level” often becomes chaotic.7

Beyond the areas around stations, the chaos of Tokyo’s streets can be more appealing.

William H. Whyte prefers Tokyo’s older, ordinary streets to its newer avenues, and notes that these narrow streets “are consistently more interesting than ours.”8 He attributes this principally to mixture: combinations of diverse uses (due to the absence of rigid Americanstyle zoning), and mixes of building types side-by-side.9 Other writers have also noted that Tokyo’s streets manage to function quite well, in spite of their chaotic qualities. A number of reasons have been offered. Jan Gehl notes that the “soft edges” in the older urban areas of Tokyo contribute significantly to the city’s liveliness and walkability.10 In Gehl’s view, factors such as the spacing of retail uses at the ground level are critical: The treatment of the city’s edges, particularly the lower floors of buildings, has a decisive influence on life in city space. This is the zone you walk along when you’re in town, and these are the frontages you see and experience close up and therefore intensely. This is where you enter and leave buildings, where indoor and outdoor life can interact. This is where city meets building.11 For Allan Jacobs, “the patterns of streets and blocks” in certain parts of Tokyo “have a certain abstract elegance of design that alone makes them memorable.”12 He found that the Nihonbashi area, in particular, is among the most fine-grained districts in the world, with some 988 intersections per square mile.13 Other keen observers attribute the success of Tokyo’s streets in part to behavioral characteristics associated with Japanese culture. In a wide ranging work on behavior 5

Livio Sacchi, Tokyo: City and Architecture (New York: Universe Publishing, 2004), 96.

6

Ibid., 92.

7

Ibid., 90.

8

William H. Whyte, City: Rediscovering the Center (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 88.

9

Ibid., 89-90.

10

Jan Gehl, Cities for People (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2010), 86.

11

Ibid., 75.

12

Allan Jacobs, Great Streets (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995), 256.

13

Ibid., 261.

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

in traffic, Tom Vanderbilt describes a study in which researchers examined a number of intersections in Tokyo, and a number of similar intersections in China.14 The results were striking: “Physically, the intersections were essentially the same. But those in Tokyo handled up to twice as many vehicles in an hour.” The researchers attributed the efficiency of Tokyo intersections mainly to signal compliance by cars and pedestrians. Vanderbilt notes that compliance “was, like Japanese culture itself, rigorously formal and polite.”

Tokyo’s streets work well not only for drivers and pedestrians, but for those on bicycles as well. In a 2012 study examining cycling in four megacities – London, Paris, New York, and Tokyo – John Pucher and other researchers found that Tokyo stood out from the others in several important respects: • • •

•

Cycling accounted for 16.5 percent of all trips in Tokyo, almost ten times as high as the share in the other three cities.15 Almost 70 percent of Tokyo residents cycle at least once a week, and more than a third cycle four or more times per week, mostly for short, utilitarian trips.16 54 percent of cyclists in Tokyo are women; 36 percent of women in Tokyo cycle every day. For comparison, as of 2008, only 20 percent of cyclists in New York were women; 86 percent of women in New York never cycled at all, and only 5 percent cycled a few times a month.17 The fatality rate among cyclists in New York was almost twenty times higher than in Tokyo.18

These statistics are all the more striking considering the near-absence of dedicated bicycle facilities in Tokyo. Tokyo does have an enormous amount of bike parking, mostly at train stations, but there are very few bike paths or lanes.19 Based on interviews with experts, the authors suggest several factors that could explain the safety of cycling in Tokyo: • • •

The customary Japanese emphasis on politeness and mutual respect; Slower speeds of motor vehicles (the speed limit throughout Tokyo is 30 km/hr); Cycling tends to be at lower speeds – e.g. on crowded sidewalks.20

Taken together, these factors make cycling relatively easy for much of Tokyo’s population.

Owning and driving a car, in contrast, is not so easy: the city imposes significant taxes and restrictions on car ownership, including a requirement that anyone purchasing a car must document the availability of a private, off-street parking space.21

14

Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 219220.

15

John Pucher et al., “Cycling in Megacities: London, Paris, New York, and Tokyo,” in City Cycling (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2012), 322.

16

Ibid., 325.

17

Ibid., 324-25.

18

Ibid., 325.

19

Ibid., 330.

20

Ibid., 328, 334.

21

Ibid., 335.

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

METHODOLOGY Our group dealt in depth with streets and landscape as edges, which form the thresholds in various ways in almost all the public and semipublic spaces. While walking through the streets of Tokyo and other major cities in Japan, we observed how well the spaces were designed to accommodate all users, from small children to citizens, from the visually impaired to people on bicycles. We sought out a variety of locations in order to observe an array of street types. In many locations, we took photos and measurements, and recorded our observations with notes and sketches. We also visited with Japanese students as scholars, as well as ordinary users of public spaces, to gain their insights and impressions about their streets.

Source Neelu M.

FIGURE 1.2: Streets & Landscape edges of major cities of Japan.

TYPOLOGIES Our analysis focuses on four types of streets we observed in Japan: shopping streets, boulevards, “Garden City” streets, and streets with bicycle facilities.

SHOPPING STREETS Many streets in Tokyo fit a straightforward profile: they have no car traffic at all, or very little; they are narrow, typically about 17 feet wide, with no sidewalks; and they are lined on both sides with a variety of small shops and vendors, each typically about 15 to 20 feet wide.(See e.g.,Fig. 1.3) These streets are known as “shotengai,” and are often located near transit stations.

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

These streets are not modern creations; they are remnants of the urban fabric of the Edo period, dating between 1603 and 1868. While the modern period since then has brought significant new transportation infrastructure – subways, rail lines, highways – “[t]he ancient urban fabric of Edo... has survived remarkably well.”22 The old road networks are largely intact, with few long axes: “there seems to be a total lack of the all-encompassing design that defines many European capitals.” 23 There is no room on these streets for sidewalks, because they were never meant to be promenades. Source Neelu M. Richie attributes this aspect of Tokyo’s streets to a FIGURE 1.3: Takeshita-dori, Tokyo cultural sense of privacy: If Edo had no promenades, it was because one was meant to see and be seen only in private – at the castle and at the better residences. Walking about for the entire populace to gape at would have been considered ill bred... Anonymity in the street was the rule.24

Thus, in comparison with their European counterparts, which are known for their social aspects, Japanese streets evolved to serve a different function; namely, shopping: If the European street can be something like a stage, the Japanese street is like a market... Shops line the street, open up, spill out. Clothes on racks and sides of beef alike are shoved onto sidewalks. The fish shop’s scaly glitter is right there, still gasping. Baby televisions, miniature computers piled high blink eye to eye. Not here, not yet, the closed transactions of the supermarket; instead, the raw profusion of consumption itself exists right out on the street.25

The market-like atmosphere of these streets contributes to making them “consistently more interesting than ours,” as Holly Whyte put it.26 And because these streets are part of the city’s historic fabric, they tend to be within easy reach, convenient to homes and transit centers.

By all indications, these streets continue to thrive today. Unlike most U.S. cities, the Tokyo has maintained heavy concentrations of population in the central city. In the U.S., the 20th century brought a suburban exodus and widespread dependence 22

Saachi, p. 76.

23

Id., p. 92; see also Richie, p. 14 (noting that “an overall plan, a civic ordering of the city, is missing”).

24

Richie, p. 36.

25

Richie, p. 37.

26

Whyte, p. 88.

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

Source Chris Riley

FIGURE 1.4: Hotonomachi Dori, Tokyo

Source Chris Riley

FIGURE 1.5: Tenjinbashi-suji, Osaka

on cars, and shopping patterns moved away from main street toward strip centers and enclosed shopping malls. But in Tokyo and other Japanese cities, pedestrian and transit activity remains strong, and shotengai continue to serve the population well.

Source Chris Riley

FIGURE 1.6: Shin-Nakamise, Tokyo

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We visited a number of shotengai, most notably Takeshita Dori in the Harajuku area and Hatonomachi Dori in the Mukojima area(Fig 1.4). In some instances, streets like these have been covered to form protected shopping arcades. We also visited Osaka’s Tenjinbashisuji shopping street, known as the longest covered shopping arcade in Japan(Fig 1.5), and Shin-Nakamise shopping street in Tokyo’s Asakusa district(Fig 1.6), as well as the Nishiki Market in Kyoto.

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

Covered or uncovered, the experience of these streets is unlike virtually anything in the United States. Every few steps bring another spectacle to view. The width of the shops fits the model that Gehl describes in his discussion of soft edges: Shops and booths in active, thriving commercial streets all over the world often have a façade length of five or six meters (16-20 feet), which corresponds to 1520 shops or other eye-catching options per 100 meters (328 feet). At an ordinary walking speed of about 80 seconds per 100 meters (328 feet), the façade rhythm on these streets means that there are new activities and sights to see about every five seconds.27

It is the vitality of the edges that makes these streets so engaging. The diversity of the shops, and the sights they present, make walking these streets an interesting and enjoyable experience. And the crowds that are drawn by these shops make the experience both authentic and memorable.

BOULEVARDS Japan does not have many grand, european-style boulevards. But it does have some avenues that approach their effect. richie notes that “[w]hen the country initially was opened to the west (to the extent that it was) after the middle of the nineteenth century, a few european esplanades were attempted. the gingko-lined boulevard leading into meiji park, that grand avenue leading to the diet building – these are late promenades, but they are too short to be really grand.”28 A boulevard similar to that leading into meiji park is omotesando, which is an impressive showcase of architecture and designer stores. The street is about 120 feet wide from building face to building face, with 28-foot sidewalks on each side. There are typically two traffic lanes and one parking lane in each direction, with a narrow median strip in the center topped by a low hedge. large zelkova trees line each side, spaced about 25 feet apart, with shrubbery at the base of each.

On this street, as on many others in tokyo, signage, landscaping, and physical barriers are used to guide and restrict the movement of pedestrians and those on bicycles(see Fig 1.7). Pedestrians are generally channeled along the sidewalks, with crossings allowed at periodic crosswalks and an overhead walkway; barriers such as the hedge in the median discourage midblock crossings. banners announce that biking on the sidewalk is prohibited, and there is no separate facility for bicycles on the street, so it’s not surprising that we observed relatively few bicycles on this street.

27

Gehl, p. 77.

28

Richie, p. 35.

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

Source Neelu M.

FIGURE 1.7:Omotesando Blvd, Tokyo

Source Neelu M.

FIGURE 1.8:Plan & Cross section of Omotesando Blvd, Tokyo

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

Source Chris Riley

FIGURE 1.9:Tree pit design,Omotesando Blvd.,Tokyo

Source Neelu M.

FIGURE 1.10:Tree pit design,Omotesando Blvd.,Tokyo

The buildings lining the street represent an eclectic mix of styles. While most buildings are freestanding, they generally provide continuous edges along both side of the street, with only a few instances of deeper setbacks. Some buildings are as low as three stories, but most are in the range of six to twelve stories, providing walls that correspond roughly to the width of the street. The buildings are generally wider than those on the smaller shopping streets, with some occupying most or all of a block.

While the buildings are interesting from an architectural standpoint, they generally do not offer the degree of street-level interest and activity of the smaller shopping streets. There is little outdoor seating, and few instances of goods or services spilling out into the street. Additionally, the width of stores’ frontages means that it typically takes more than a few seconds to move from one store to the next.

The landscaping of Tokyo’s boulevards does add to their appeal; these streets offer shade and greenery that the smaller streets generally lack(see, e.g.,Fig 1.9).

But when the greenery takes the form of hedges designed to restrict movement, the appeal only goes so far. The crowds on these streets do make them feel lively, but the liveliness is generally due to the crowds themselves, rather than the way the buildings engage the street (See Fig 1.10).

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

GARDEN CITY STREETS The grand esplanade is not the only European urban form that the Japanese sought to import. Another is the Garden City, which railway companies in Tokyo sought to replicate in the early 20th century.

The original Garden City concept is generally attributed to Ebenezer Howard, an Englishman who authored a book introducing the concept in 1898.1 Howard sought to address what he considered the great problem of his time: the fact that many people were abandoning the countryside and streaming into already overcrowded cities. To compete with the appeal of the city (the “Town Magnet”), Howard advocated the construction of a “Town-Country magnet”: a large estate outside the city that would marry the benefits of the town with those of the country. In the ideal form he described(shown here in Fig 1.11), the Town-Country magnet featured a central,1,000-acre Garden City next to a Source Garden Cities of Tomorrow (1902) rail line, with six magnificent boulevards radiating outward FIGURE 1.11: Howard’s vision of the Garden City, from from a hub comprised of a garden, civic buildings, and a Garden Cities of tomorrow(1902) park.

Howard’s arguments found a receptive audience in the Tokyo of a century ago. Due to the war, the Japanese economy at that time was booming: between 1914 and 1918 the country’s industrial output rose from 1.4 billion to 6.8 billion yen.30 Tokyo was teeming with the nouveau riche, known as narikin.

Additionally, a “new middle class” was emerging, consisting of educated and salaried office workers and their families. Along with wealth came dreams of a modern life, supported by new patterns of consumption.

Department stores emerged, celebrating modern new lifestyles. The stores were often built at major train stations by new commuter rail companies that brought shoppers in from outlying areas.

In 1918 the Tokyu Railway took these measures a step further by constructing Den-en-Chofu, a garden city located at the southern edge of Tokyo. There had been some previous garden city experiments in Japan, but this was the largest. The design of Den-en-Chofu was based largely on Howard’s concept.

The town is situated on a rail line, with streets radiating outward on the north side of the train station (see Figure 1.11).

29 30

See Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (Sonnenschein, 1898), republished as Garden Cities of To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1902).

Andrew Gordon, ed., A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 139.

Source Denenchofu Association

FIGURE 1.12: Den-en Chofu plan and aerial view

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

While the boulevards Howard pictured were 120 feet wide, the streets of Den-en-Chofu are much smaller: about 21½ feet wide from curb to curb, with sidewalks about 7½ feet wide on each side(see Fig 1.13 and 1.14). Large trees line each side, spaced about 25-30 feet apart. The streets are calm and quiet, like those in some of the more scenic American suburbs. The American versions of the Garden City tend 0to be somewhat more oriented toward cars; for example, in Sunnyside Gardens, Queens – also an early Garden City, built in the 1920s – the streets are wider (about 40 feet), and the sidewalks are narrower (about 4 feet).

In a city known for its labyrinthine form and lack of order, Den-en-Chofu stands out as a showcase of urban design.

And this design had some resonance for us; it represents the Tokyo manifestation of the same belief system that has shaped much of modern America.31

Source Chris Riley

FIGURE 1.13: Street view,Den-en Chofu

Compared to other parts of Tokyo, Den-en-Chofu clearly succeeds in creating a sense of order, at least in the central area. It also succeeds in providing pleasant, walkable neighborhood streets.

In some respects, though, Den-en-Chofu falls short of the standards set by other Tokyo streets. As a relatively small, predominantly residential community, Den-en-Chofu lacks the mix of uses that give other parts of Tokyo such vitality.

From the beginning, families living in garden cities like Denen-Chofu would typically go to the Ginza district in central Tokyo for shopping, dining, and relaxing; this modern leisure became known as Gin-bura, or “Ginza cruising.” 32 We saw relatively few pedestrians on the residential streets of Denen-Chofu, and while some houses lining the streets featured Source Neelu M. interesting designs, they did not seem particularly oriented FIGURE 1.14: Den-en Chofu street plan & section toward human interaction. While the design of Den-en-Chofu certainly allows for a pleasant stroll, it would be something of a stretch to say that these streets are “consistently more interesting than ours.”1

31 See Stern, Robert A. M., David Fishman, and Jacob Tilove, Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City(Monacelli Press, 2013).

32 Gordon, p. 155.

33 See Whyte, p. 88 (describing Tokyo’s narrow streets).

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

A similar concept of Garden City is also observed in Chandigarh, the garden city of India. Located in the picturesque junction of foothills of the Himalayas Mountain Range and the Ganga plains. The city planned was planned by Le Corbusier, who conceived the master plan as an analogous to human body with a clear defined body features such as Head(Capitol Complex), heart( the City square), Lungs (The leisure valley),Circulatory system( networks of roads) and Viscera ( the Industrial Zone). The layout of Den-en Chofu, shown in Fig 1.15 as compared to Chandigarh,but bothare designed around a major landmark.

Source PERERA*, N. I. H. A. L.

FIGURE 1.15: Chandigarh plan and aerial view

Landscaping in Den-en Chofu plays a critical role in shaping of the boulevard. Wide tree lined boulevards and parks were incorporated in Den-en-chofu’s design. Gingko trees line the streets of the boulevard, giving it a pleasant shade. Many houses in the area are so large that they’re considered estates by Tokyo standards. The use of tall shrubs or medium sized gingko trees as a property barrier, indicating the boundary of each lot, sets this space apart from all the other residential spaces visited in Japan. Instead of having tall fences or concrete walls surrounding their houses, shrubs or trees were chosen as visual barriers for each house. The importance of nature and green spaces in Japanese culture is embedded through the various mystical powers nature holds in Japanese culture. In Japanese history, Gingko trees fueled people’s imaginative powers: Since ancient times, Ginkgo has stimulated people’s imaginative powers and permitted culture of many kinds to bloom. Among many distinctive features, the shape of its leaves especially has stimulated the creative powers of artists and served as the theme of poetry. Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) sang as follows in the poem titled “Gingko Biloba” in the West-Eastern Divan: “Is it one living thing that has become divided within itself? Are these two who have chosen each other, so that we know them as one?” Ginkgo personifies a world of harmony with oneself and is also called the tree of love. It is a mysterious tree that reminds us of how the Occident and the orient have met and influenced each other. This chapter considers the Ginkgo in Japan, a nation of the orient.’’34 34 Hori, Terumitsu, Robert W. Ridge, Walter Tulecke, Peter Del Tredici, Jocelyne Trémouillaux-Guiller, and Hiroshi Tobe, eds., Ginkgo Biloba, A Global Treasure: From Biology to Medicine. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012. p 259-260

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

STREETS WITH BICYCLE FACILITIES No current-day discussion about streets and edges would be complete without some mention of bicycle facilities. In the United States and elsewhere, the edges of important streets are increasingly lined with bike lanes and similar facilities designed to provide a safe space for bicyclists. A growing number of these are separated facilities, which provide a physical barrier between car traffic and those on bicycles.35 The result has been a significant increase in bicycle ridership. New York City has been seeing doubledigit percentage increases in biking, with annual growth between 2006 and 2010 ranging from 13 to 32 percent.36

Source Chris Riley

FIGURE 1.16: Bike Lane, Kyoto

In Tokyo, as noted previously, bicycle lanes remain relatively scarce. We did observe some onstreet facilities, such as the Kyoto example shown in Fig. 1.16, featuring narrow spaces between painted lines on each side of a traffic lane. Kyoto is known as an excellent city for biking, but only one of its streets has a separated bike lane, and very few have standard bike lanes.37 A number of bike facilities in both Kyoto and other Japanese cities are not on the street itself, but on the sidewalk, as shown in the first image Fig. 1.17. Some of these use distinctively colored paving materials to help distinguish them from the pedestrian areas. Often, the lanes extend across intersections between painted lines adjacent to crosswalks, as shown in the second and third images in Figure 1.17.

Source Chris Riley

FIGURE 1.17:Marked bike crossings at intersections in Tokyo (left) and Sendai(right) ;sidewalk bike lane in Kyoto

Bicycle facilities on sidewalks are fairly common in Europe and Latin America, but they are rare in the United States. American authorities generally consider the sidewalk a more dangerous place to ride than the street, mainly due to the potential for conflicts with pedestrians and turning vehicles.38 Riding on the sidewalk is illegal in many places in the United States, especially in central business districts.

35

See, e.g., “When mere paint won’t do it: The changing look of bike lanes in the U.S. and around the world,” Chicago Tribune, Aug. 24, 2016, online at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-bike-lanes-around-the-world-20160824-story.html ..

36 Sarah Goodyear, “The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York,” CityLab, April 16, 2005, online at http://www.citylab.com/ commute/2015/04/the-steady-rise-of-bike-ridership-in-new-york/390717/ .

37 “Bicycle Lanes: Overview,” Cycle Kyoto, online at http://www.cyclekyoto.com/bicycle-lanes .

38 See Liz Murphy, “Bike Law University: Sidewalk Riding,” News from the League, June 3, 2013, online at http://bikeleague.org/ content/bike-law-university-sidewalk-riding .

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

Riding on the sidewalk is generally illegal in Japan as well, but the prohibition is often ignored.

Many of those on bikes choose to ride on sidewalks, and collisions with pedestrians are uncommon. Some experts attribute the safety of biking in Tokyo to “the Japanese custom of politeness, mutual respect, and considerate sharing of space,”39 which undoubtedly mitigates the likelihood of collisions on sidewalks.

The general prohibition on riding on sidewalks is one of several respects in which Japanese law is more restrictive toward bicyclists than the actual practice of biking would suggest. Japanese law prohibits riding while carrying an umbrella, listening to an iPod, or talking on the phone, all of which are common.40 The law also prohibits carrying passengers other than one child under the age of six (who must be in designated child seat), and all children under thirteen must have a helmet; these restrictions are also commonly ignored. In the Hyogo Prefecture (west of Kyoto), a law was recently passed requiring bicyclists to carry liability insurance; but there is no penalty for violations, and most bicyclists were expected not to comply. 41 Despite the near-absence of bike lanes, and the persistence of some restrictive laws, Japan remains one of the best countries in the world for biking. Some consider it the “third great cycling nation,” after Denmark and the Netherlands.42 With almost seventy percent of residents biking at least once a week,43 biking in Tokyo is a thoroughly mainstream, everyday activity; not on the edge of city life, but right at its center.44 There is one type of bicycle infrastructure at which Japan excels: parking. Pucher et al. found that the supply of bike parking in Tokyo was five times greater than the supply in London, Paris, and New York combined.45 The per capital supply of bike parking in the Tokyo prefecture is about forty times higher than in New York.46 Notably, much of Tokyo’s bike parking is located underground, or under freeways, so it does not interfere with pedestrian activity on the street.

When it is located above ground, it is often structured efficiently in two levels, as shown in the examples below that we saw in the Nihombashi area (see Figure 1.18).

39 Pucher et al. at 328.

40 Erica Knecht, “About Cycling and Biking in Japan,” Surviving in Japan, online at http://www.survivingnjapan.com/2011/09/about-cycling-and-biking-in-japan. html .

41 Byron Kidd, “Hyogo Prefecture Passes Mandatory Bicycle Insurance Law,” Tokyo by Bike, online at http://www.tokyobybike.com/2015/03/hyogo-prefecturepasses-mandatory.html 42 Mikael Colville-Andersen, “Don’t Forget Japan,” Copenhagenize, Dec. 6, 2011, online at http://www.copenhagenize.com/2011/12/dont-forget-japan.html .

43 Pucher et al. at 325.

44 The motto of a website on biking in Tokyo seems apt: “Cycling in Japan is more about getting the groceries than getting fit.” Byron Kidd, Tokyo by Bike, online at http://www.tokyobybike.com/ .

45 Pucher et al. at 330.

46 I d. at 331

Source Chris Riley

FIGURE 1.18:Strcutured bicycle parking in Tokyo’s Nihombashi area

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Providing ample secure, covered bike parking is one way that Tokyo makes biking more convenient for many than driving. It also serves to keep the street edges clear; in New York and other cities with inadequate bike parking, bikes are often locked to signs, railings, or any other fixed objects along the street.

In regard to other types of bike infrastructure, such as separated lanes, Japan clearly lags behind the best practices of other countries. It’s hard to know whether better bike lanes would significantly increase the number of bike trips made in Japan; many who might enjoy such lanes may already be riding. But better lanes could enhance the appeal of many streets, and would likely generate more bike activity – especially on the boulevards, where riding on the sidewalks is expressly prohibited.

Better bike lanes would also signify that the city is welcoming those on bikes. Tokyo does not have a strong history of bike promotion or advocacy,47 but there are some indications of progress in that regard; for example, the Cycling Embassy of Japan has recently emerged as a voice for promoting cycling.48 More vocal advocacy could lead to more bike-friendly laws and streets – bringing bikes into the center of thinking on the way streets work, instead of relegating them to the edges.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS -Tokyo’s shopping streets vs. Fulton Mall, New York city Choosing a street in a city such as New York which compares on similar context to the shopping streets visited in Japan, was quite challenging. New York City has shopping streets catering to different needs of people, from brand-name stores to deals and discounts stores. Fifth Avenue, the Lower East Side, the Orchard Street Shopping District, and SoHo’s shopping grid from Broadway West to Sixth Avenue all offer design house labels and different types of stores catering to a variety of preferences.

To form a constructive comparative analyses for our report, we looked to the city’s first pedestrian mall, the Fulton Street Mall located in Downtown Brooklyn.

Fulton Mall is a pedestrian street and transit mall in Downtown Brooklyn that runs on Fulton Street between Flatbush Avenue and Adams Street. This space is home to over 230 stores, including major retailers outlets such as Macy’s and many flagship store – H&M, Gap, GameStop, RadioShack, Payless ShoeSource, Foot Locker, Modell’s Sporting Goods, and Finish Line, to name a few.

Below is a basic outline comparing some of the features of Fulton Street with those of shotengai.

47 See, e.g., Pucher et al. at 339 (“Tokyo does little to promote cycling through group rides, special events informational campaigns, and cycling advocacy, which have been an important part of the overall policy package in [London, Park, and New York].”)

48 See http://cycling-embassy.jp/ . See also http://cyclekyoto.blogspot.jp/p/about.html (“CycleKyoto.com is also an advocacy site. We will be active in and pushing for: bike lanes, improved parking, better safety, and more.”)

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

SHOPPING STREETS

FULTON STREET Downtown Brooklyn, New York City

SHONTENGAI (Hatonomachi dori) Japan

Source Ash Kadekar

Source Chris Riley

FIGURE 1.19: Fulton Streetscape

FIGURE 1.20:Typical Shopping Street

Linear

Linear

Presence of vehicular Movement

High passing vehicular movements consisting of dedicated bus lanes; for the mall’s length, only buses, commercial vehicles, local truck deliveries, and emergency vehicles are allowed to use the street.

The Fulton Mall area is New York City’s third largest commercial center and is one of New York City’s densest transit hubs.

No vehicular movement permitted, except service mini vans present for deliveries

Pedestrian Presence

Present but not as dominant compared to High dominance the shopping streets of Tokyo pedestrian movement.

Orientation Accessibility

of

Streetscape Design Features Sidewalks

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Present Main means of access to the individual stores

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No sidewalks present

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

Street lighting

No sidewalks present.

Present Though the street light are mostly applicable for the vehicular movement.

Source Ash Kadekar

FIGURE 1.21:Sketch of Fulton street lighting

Shaded/Unshaded Unshaded

Shaded and Unshaded.

Trash bins

Present at regular interval

Low presence.

Bins where only observed outside stores where food was served. E.g.: Nishiki market had small bins outside the business.

Landscaping (street trees, planters, buffer strips)

Present

Not present.

Source Ash Kadekar

Source Ash Kadekar

FIGURE 1.22:Fulton St. streetscape

FIGURE 1.23:Nishiki market Covered Street

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

BOULEVARDS When it comes to boulevards, the Rajpath in New Delhi is a monumental civic street. It is unified by Lutyens’ plan; the imposition of a classical style of architecture with a strong Mughal flavor. Rajpath (meaning “King’s Way”) is a ceremonial boulevard in New Delhi, India, that runs from Rashtrapati Bhavan on Raisina Hill through Vijay Chowk and India Gate to National Stadium, Delhi. The avenue is lined on both sides by huge lawns, canals and rows of trees. Considered to be one of the most important roads in India, it is where the annual Republic Day parade takes place on 26 January.

Janpath (meaning “People’s Way”) crosses the road. Roads from Connaught Place, the financial Boulevard

Orientation

Accesibilty

Rajpath,New Delhi India

Omatesando, Tokyo Japan

Source Ash Kadekar

Source Neelu M.

FIGURE 1.24:Raj path Sketch

FIGURE 1.25:Omatosando Street view

Street runs in east-west direction.

The street runs in east-west direction.

Source Google Maps

Source Chris Riley

FIGURE 1.26:Location Map-Raj path

FIGURE 1.27:Location Map-omatosando

Open to both vehicles and pedestrain Open to mostly vehicular movement.

High dominance of vehicles as it is one movement.

High dominance of pedestrian of the main streets in Tokyo. movement due to tourism.

Streescape Side walks

Present Presnt.

Facilities for walking and gathering The sidewalks in this space serve mainly as a walking pathway for the space present. commerical stores. High densitu of public was observed.

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MOVEMENT AT THE EDGE: TOKYO STREETS Aswitha Kadekar, Chris Riley, Neelu M.

SUMMARY Of the four street types considered above, the traditional shopping street, or shotengai, is the most successful at providing an engaging, walkable environment for human interaction. The edges of these streets teem with activity: a different storefront appears every few steps, spilling out onto the street with various goods or services.

The boulevards in Tokyo offer interesting architecture and attractive greenery, but they tend to have less interaction between the buildings and activity on the street, and much of the landscaping seems designed to control pedestrian movements. The streets of a garden city, Den-en-Chofu, provide a pleasant setting comparable to some American suburbs, but the edges provide little to engage pedestrians. Streets with bicycle facilities are an encouraging sign of progress for bicyclists, but currently provide little meaningful protection for those who choose to ride.

All four types demonstrate the important role of street edges in creating a place that invites pedestrian and bicycle activity. The edges that evolved over time on the older Japanese streets tend to perform the best at engaging pedestrians. The boulevard and garden city models – both imported from the west – tend to have edges that are less successful. And the streets that seek to accommodate bicycles tend to fall short of providing safe, protected routes. But in all four cases, the attention given to the edges helps create a pleasant environment that generates levels of activity rarely seen in the western world.

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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR IN JAPANESE PUBLIC SPACE Jim Shelton INTRODUCTION Japan is one of the world’s most urbanized societies, with 93% of the total population (roughly 118.5 million people) residing in cities.1 As such, the spatial design of Japanese cities is integrally linked to the function and wellbeing of the nation. Yet despite the massive concentration of citizens in urban areas throughout Japan, public spaces in Japanese cities, particularly public parks and open green spaces—often seen as an invaluable part of successful Western urban design—are surprisingly limited (Fig. 2.1).

The stark distinction between what has historically been defined as public space (parks, beaches, plazas, squares) and private space (homes, offices, commercial spaces) in Western cities is not as clearly demarcated in the Japanese urban context, particularly in regard to commercial space. In the absence of abundant parks and open public areas within the densely developed city, gathering places are commonly owned and/or managed, either in-part or in-full, by private entities. The predominance of privately owned public spaces (POPS) is a widely observed, distinct characteristic of Japanese urban space. Rather than a sharp, defined edge between the public and private sector in regard to public gathering spaces in Japanese cities, there is often a mixing of roles in terms of ownership, programming, management, and use of these spaces.

% of Public Green Space City

Figure

Moscow

54.0%

Shenzhen

45.0%

Hong Kong

40.0%

London

33.0%

New York City

27.0%

Seoul

26.6%

Tokyo

3.4%

Source: http://www.worldcitiescultureforum.com/data/of-public-green-space-parks-and-gardens

FIGURE . 2.1 Percent of land area dedicated to public green space in major global cities.

This assertion attempts to avoid a value-driven evaluation of Japanese public spaces, but rather seeks to use the observation of Japanese public spaces as a means to learn and inform Western perspectives. The particularities of Japanese public spaces, both in their historical emergence and in their current function, differ dramatically from those in many Western cities, thus in attempting to observe and analyze them there is inevitably a concern regarding the imposition of the archetypal values and assumptions of Western planning and urban design 1 “Urban population (% of total),” The World Bank, accessed August 1, 2016, http://data.worldbank.org/

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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR IN JAPANESE PUBLIC SPACE Jim Shelton

theory. With this in mind, it is fair to say that the blurred distinction between the public and private in Japanese public spaces can in fact be a very informative case study for American cities, as POPS have grown dramatically in popularity over the past half-century as a zoning incentive, and many urbanists express both optimism and reservations over the growing role of the private sector in the design, management, and use of public space in the West.2

BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW The amorphous distinction between public and private gathering spaces in Japanese cities is connected both to historical demographic changes and developments in architectural design and city planning, but also to the historical socio-political development of the concepts of a public and private sphere in the nation. Jürgen Habermas opens his seminal work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere by warning that, “The usage of the words ‘public’ and ‘public sphere’ betrays a multiplicity of concurrent meanings” which “fuse into a clouded amalgam.”3 This observation is none clearer than in the Japanese context, where as Barrie Shelton explains, the Japanese have lacked a historical conceptual and linguistic equivalent to the European notion of “the public”, noting that in fact “the word ‘public’—pronounced ‘paburikku’” was itself a Western import.4 In Japan, the distinction between the public and private spheres finds it closest etymological equivalent with the term “uchi-soto” wherein “Uchi…refers to the family, clan or group: soto means outside. Thus soto is all that which is outside of the uchi.”5 Leslie Pincus asserts that, “the question of what and who constitutes the public has remained an issue of heated contention in Japan’s postwar decades,” thus emphasizing that a consensus has never been reached on the definition, relationship, and inherent value of the public and private spheres in the postwar Japanese democratic state.6 This question has its most immediate political and social expression in the weaker civil society seen in Japan when compared to Western countries. Despite the economic and political success of the Japanese state in the second half of the 20th-century, it has never seen the emergence of a lively independent civil society in the typical Western sense, and thus the distinctions between the roles of the public and private spheres have been more fluid and contested.

As a result of these conceptual differences, the roles of the public and the private sectors in terms of creating and maintaining public spaces in Japan has differed dramatically from Western cities. Shelton explains that within the Western urban design paradigm:

2 Jerold S. Kayden, “Privately Owned Public Space,” POPS Inventory, New York City Department of City Planning, 2007.

3 Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: MIT Press, [1962] 1989), 1.

4 Barrie Shelton, Learning from the Japanese City (E & FN Spon, 2005), 122.

5 Ibid.

6 Leslie Pincus, “Guest Editor’s Introduction” from positions: east asia cultures critique, Volume 10, Number 1 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), 1-6.

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If something is ‘public’ it is generally accessible and available to the community as a whole. Hence, in the city, the public domain encompasses all those places to which the entire community has both access to and for which it has responsibility. By contrast, that which is private is possessed by an individual or group and is not generally open to the public.7 In a break from this typical distinction, privately owned public spaces (POPS) appeared to be widespread, popular and nearly ubiquitous across the urban landscape in Japan. The prevalence of POPS we observed during our time in Japan stands as a remarkable exemplar of the blurred lines between the roles of the public and private sector. Typically, POPS emerge as a result of the zoning process, where a private sector developer is granted additional Floor Area Ratio (F.A.R.) rights in exchange for a concession to the public sector in the form of a publicly accessible space in or around the new building—in essence, creating new public space out of thin air while relegating its production and management to the private sector.8 In our observations of Japanese public spaces, this commonly results in public gathering spaces wherein the programming is dominated by private commercial interests in the form of shops, cafes, etc., or at the very least are located concurrent to commercial ventures.

This differs from the traditional Western conception of a public space, often informed by democratic political principles, where there is a strong connection between a vibrant civil society embodied in “the public sphere” and the physical spaces where “the public” may interact. Jurgen Habermas’ definition of the public sphere, identified as a central feature of Western capitalist democracies, is articulated as “the sphere of private people come together as a public...against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations…in the publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor.”9 As Shelton pointed out, the process of the public sphere’s emergence is not as easily identifiable in Japanese political history. While the emergence of a public sphere is an inherently non-spatial concept, lively public spaces are a key physical feature of the urban landscapes in societies where this development is most clearly identified.

The spatial connection between the concept of an emergent public sphere and urban design theory may be best articulated by Jan Gehl’s thesis on public spaces in Life Between Buildings. For Gehl, public spaces act to assemble or disperse, integrate or segregate, invite or repel, open up or close in, all depending on their physical characteristics. In this regard, sound design of public spaces fulfills a psychological need amongst residents of a given area for contact with other people.10 Gehl’s concept of successful urban design hinges on the encouragement of social engagement, particularly in day to day outdoor 7 Barrie Shelton, Learning from the Japanese City (E & FN Spon, 2005), 121.

8 Christian Dimmer, “Re-imagining public space: The vicissitudes of Japan’s privately owned public spaces” in Christoph Brumann and Evelyn Schulz, eds., Urban Spaces in Japan: Cultural and Social Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2012).

9 Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: MIT Press, [1962] 1989), 27.

10 Jan Gehl, Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1987).

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activities. Taking a psychologically informed perspective toward urban design, he argues that increased social contact in the many physical spaces between private buildings and individual dwellings creates a strong and lively urban fabric. In Japanese cities, many of these lively spaces are actively managed by private entities and often serve a distinct commercial function. Additionally, many of the public gathering spaces we observed were in fact inside privately owned buildings, but were in practice functioning as informal “public” spaces, and were counted towards awarded increases in zoning density.

Some of these spaces are successful in the way Gehl describes, while others seem to fall flat precisely because they lack the functional characteristics and design elements that would encourage organic social interaction. Whether or not this is result of the strong presence of the private sector as both a producer and manager of public spaces throughout Japan, and whether this represents a potential success or failure of the “F.A.R.-for-public space” incentive tradeoff system, is a key goal of this brief study, but also represents an opportunity for more in-depth future research.

METHODOLOGY The focus of my research included several large development complexes in Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as two sites in Kyoto, which has a very distinct architectural, cultural, and political history. The Kyoto sites offer an alternative model of Japanese public spaces that appeared more similar in management, programming and function to Western public spaces, but nonetheless possessed a unique Japanese quality that did not fit precisely within a Western design and planning paradigm.

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TOKYO TOKYO MIDTOWN The Tokyo Midtown complex, in the Akasaka district of Tokyo, is one of the most distinct examples of a dramatic blurring of the edge between public and private that we observed while in Japan, and is particularly significant as an indicator of a new and widespread development paradigm for Tokyo. The overall complex is a large, multi-building mixed-use development completed in 2007 and includes office, hotel, and residential space, as well as outdoor green park space, a new art museum, and a Galleria mall with many commercialspaces(Fig. 2.2).

Source: Google Earth

FIGURE 2.2: Aerial view of Tokyo Midtown complex.

While many of these spaces function in practice as public gathering spaces, they are in fact privately owned and managed by the Mitsui Fudosan Company in conjunction with the Tokyo Midtown Management Company.11 The large green spaces and plazas are a prime example of POPS created to gain extra F.A.R. rights for the Midtown Tower building, while the Galleria is representative of a lively yet wholly commodified and commercially driven private space that functions as a de facto gathering place for residents and workers in the area.

The approach to the Galleria mall includes a number of meandering walking paths through a fairly active park. Immediately preceding the entrance to the Galleria, there is a large open green space that is fenced off from the public (Fig. 2.3). This series of lawns’ primary use is a sculpture garden, however it is mostly absent of sculptures, let alone people. Crossing the street from the largely vacant, inaccessible green space with very little public activity, one enters the doors of the Galleria and is greeted by large masses of crowds gathering in a vast food court to shop, eat, and socialize (Fig 2.4). In this area, the internal and commercially-oriented space of the Galleria becomes the gathering space for the public of Tokyo, while the large park space outside that would be typical of a successful Western public gathering space remains empty and unused. In this observation, the private sector fulfills a social function that is more typical of the public sphere and civil society in many 11 “About Tokyo Midtown,” Tokyo Midtown, accessed August 1, 2016, http://www.tokyo-midtown.com/en/about/.

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Western urban contexts.

Source Jim Shelton

FIGURE 2.3: Activity and use diagram, Tokyo Midtown Galleria.

Source Jim Shelton

FIGURE 2.4: Seating area in food court looking toward green space, Tokyo Midtown Galleria.

These types of mega-developments, exemplified by Tokyo Midtown, nearby Ark Hills, and Roppongi Hills, as well as the redevelopment of the area around the Shibuya Station complex, see a large variety of uses being designated in a very dense area. These developments feature seemingly public spaces, yet all are managed by private entities, exemplifying the blurred edge between public and private in Japanese urban design and planning theory. During our trip, we were given a presentation by Mori Building Company representatives inside the Mori Building, the centerpiece of the Roppongi Hills development complex.

Here it was explained that the maintenance of these types of public spaces is often funded by the commercial tenants and advertising revenue, in a model similar to a BID in New York. The Mori representative suggested that the integration of uses and a collaboration between the public and private sectors EDGE CONDITIONS

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can serve to “foster vibrancy”; while this was not apparent in the outdoor green spaces adjacent to the Tokyo Midtown Galleria, there does appear to be a sense that some interior, privately managed, and commercially oriented public gathering spaces do serve a similar social function in Japan to the more traditional Western public spaces we may be familiar with.

YOKOHAMA QUEEN’S SQUARE The Minato Mirai 21 Central District, located on the waterfront at the Port of Yokohama, provides an example of the blurred distinctions between public and private space in Japanese urban development strategies that in some ways mirrored the experiences at Tokyo Midtown. The entire Minato Mirai 21 District is a master planned urban renewal project intended to transform a former heavy industrial shipbuilding area into a major commercial center.12 A central feature of the project is the negative space between the large skyscrapers and commercial buildings that have been given over to pedestrian use rather than designated as public streets for automobile traffic. Between the large tower developments, the project developers, in partnership with Yokohoma city planners, created a long pedestrian mall and plaza square called the Grand Mall Park. Additionally, a large central plaza between several of the buildings, known as the Queen’s Square, represents a very distinct and intentional design and policy turn toward the creation of public space (Fig. 2.5).13

Source Google Earth

FIGURE 2.5: Aerial view of Queen’s Square Complex

However, because Yokohama is a heavily residential city without the massive commercial and corporate tax base of nearby Tokyo or Osaka, there was a lack of public money to finance the project. Thus they again turned toward the private sector to fund the “public” gathering space. As a result, the Queen’s 12 “Minato Mirai 21,” Yokohama Minato Mirai 21, accessed August 1, 2016, http://www.minatomirai21.com/eng/ 13 “Information,” Queen’s Square Yokohama, accessed August 1, 2016, http://www.qsy-tqc.jp/english/

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Square Plaza and the Grand Mall pedestrian promenade function as an open public space that serves a distinct role as a conduit between major commercial shopping centers (Fig. 2.6). This does not appear to fit neatly into a Western ideal of a public space with a unique civic purpose as a gathering place and site of social interaction. It lacks seating or any kind of programming that would seem to encourage activity other than movement toward and between the large malls that dominate the area, which themselves provide ample opportunity for congregating and socializing around food courts and shops once the threshold is crossed into the interior commercial spaces (Fig. 2.7).

Source Jim Shelton

FIGURE. 2.6: Activity and use diagram, Queen’s Square.

Source Jim Shelton

FIG. 2.7: Grand Mall Park, Queen’s Square.

Adjacent to the Queen’s Square plaza, toward the harbor side terminus of the Grand Mall Park, is another unique space that is representative of the Japanese propensity towards POPS and exhibits a remarkably high level of participation and leadership from the private sector in dictating the design and function of public spaces. At the base of the Yokohama Landmark Tower (which dominates the harbor skyline and was the tallest building in Japan at the time of its completion in 1993) sits an enormous historic dry dock that has been preserved for its unique contribution to Yokohama’s nautical and shipbuilding past (Fig. 2.8).14 The historic dry dock is now called Dockyard Garden and is managed by the owners of Yokohama Landmark Tower, who also control its programming. While the space is often used for public movie screenings and musical performances, it is nonetheless significant to note that the Landmark Tower received an F.A.R. bonus to preserve the dry dock for public use, and yet a major function of its programming is to get people to visit the shops and restaurants inside the adjacent towers. On the day we visited, no users or 14 “Landmark Tower,” The Skyscraper Center: The Global Tall Building Database of the CTBUH, accessed August 1, 2016, http:skyscrapercenter.com/building/landmark-tower/547/

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Source

FIGURE 2.8: Dockyard Garden, Yokohama.

activity could be observed at the dry dock, suggesting that its function as a public space is contingent on the aforementioned commercial activities, rather than as a place where spontaneous congregation and socialization occurs, or where active civic life is engendered.

KYOTO The urban design of Kyoto differs dramatically from that of Tokyo and Yokohama in its widespread preservation of sacred and historic buildings and, in many neighborhoods, the preservation of the ancient city street grid.

Unlike Tokyo, Kyoto has been largely spared from natural disasters and the widespread bombing campaigns of World War II that leveled much of Japan’s ancient architecture. As a result, the city has a unique relationship toward public space and the separation between the public and private sphere that at times mirrors that which we saw in Tokyo and Yokohama. But in other cases, Kyoto presented notable anomalies where a genuine sense of the civic value of public gathering spaces appeared to be a guiding principle in urban design and urban planning decisions.

KYOTO CITY HALL PLAZA The Kyoto City Hall building was designed by Goiichi Murata and completed in 1927.15 It is a large and imposing gray building resembling a military fortress, and features an enormous open plaza directly in front of the building. The space itself is mostly empty, with no trees providing protection from wind or sun, and a limited number of benches that would promote any kind of social interaction or recreational use (Fig. 2.9). On a weekday, we had passed by 15 “Kyoto City Hall,” Japan Visitor (blog), published February 27, 2009, accessed August 1, 2016, http://japanvisitor.blogspot.com/2009/02/kyoto-city-hall.html

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Kyoto City Hall and the plaza was mostly filled with city workers moving to and from the main building, essentially functioning as a large transitory space.

However, on a return visit during the weekend, when the Kyoto City Hall main building was closed for operations, the plaza had transformed in to a lively space resembling a public park.

Source: Google Earth

FIGURE 2.9: Arial view of Kyoto City Hall.

The semi-circular concrete plaza was being used by several young children and their parents to practice bicycle riding. In addition, a group of young boys could be observed playing a game of catch and bouncing a rubber ball off the main door of City Hall, while other children and their parents played with a Frisbee.

A group of elderly men were seated on the benches, which themselves had been mostly unused during the weekday visit. Several were feeding birds with bread and birdseed, while others had brought a chessboard and had set up the bench as a chess playing platform. Toward the right side of the plaza, a small playground structure was being used by several families, with the younger children enjoying the slides and swing set (Figs. 2.10, 2.11).

Source Jim Shelton

FIGURE 2.10: Kyoto City Hall Plaza

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Kyoto City Hall

Ball Playing

Landscaping NO ACCESS

Bicycling

Public Plaza Impromptu High Activity Public Space

Feeding Birds

Chess Playing Public Benches

Source Jim Shelton

FIGURE 2.11: Use and activity diagram, Kyoto City Hall Plaza.

The transformation of the Kyoto City Hall plaza from a drab space with a mundane use on a weekday, to a de facto public park with a lively and diverse set of uses on a Sunday, suggests that there is an active desire for public space, at least in Kyoto, that is not defined by commercial activity and exists merely for social and recreational purposes. In the case of the Kyoto City Hall plaza, the edge between the public and private spheres and their associated uses is more strictly defined than in the spaces observed in Tokyo. The publicly owned and managed space, in its transformed weekend version, affords an opportunity for Kyoto residents to relax and interact in spontaneous ways that are not strictly informed by commercial exchange. An interpretation of the impromptu transformation of the public plaza into something resembling a park is that it represents a softer, less intentional form of tactical urbanism on behalf of the residents of Kyoto, and further suggests that these types of urban interventions may be an effective and popular strategy for Japanese urbanists and city dwellers.

KAMOGAWA DELTA PARK The Kamogawa Delta Park in north central Kyoto is the one true public park space observed in Japan that seemed to most resemble the type of urban park more commonly experienced in Western urban design. Located at the confluence of the Kamo River and Takano River directly across from Demachiyanagi Station, the Kamogawa Delta Park is a triangular grassy plot, with several tiered hills leading down to the waterfront (Fig. 2.12). On both sides of the river there are long and fairly unkempt natural walking and cycling paths. To aid access down to the waterfront from the elevated banks of the river, there are several sets of concrete staircases as well as long ramps for cycling and wheelchair access. A notable feature of the space is a set of large stone platforms that serve a stepping stone bridge from one bank of the shallow river to the other (Fig. 2.13).

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Source Google Earth

FIGURE 2.12: Arial view of Kamogawa Delta Park

Source Jim Shelton

FIGURE 2.13: Kamogawa Delta Park, Kyoto.

During our visit, we observed an incredible level of activity and volume of users at this riverfront park. Many families with young children were wading in the shallow water, while elderly couples relaxed and shared food on the riverbanks. Cyclists were taking advantage of the paths on both sides of the river, and several groups of men could be observed fishing toward the northern end of the park area. On the elevated, triangular grassy plot, several groups of teenagers were socializing around park benches, while a group of elderly men were using the elevated position to feed and watch hawks.

The Kamogawa Delta Park again represents a lively and actively used public space that is not reliant on the private sector or the presence of commercial activity is a key feature of its design and function (Figs. 2.14, 2.15). In this sense, the edge between public and private is firmly defined, and the park EDGE CONDITIONS

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functions in much the same way as a typical urban park in New York City. Questions remain regarding the maintenance and operations of the park—it is unknown whether it is managed by the municipal government of Kyoto, or if the maintenance is contracted out to a private firm. An interesting observation here, however, was that a small group of citizens could be seen picking up some scattered trash on one of the nearby islands in the middle of the Kamo River (Fig 2.16). This suggests that there may some kind of organized group of residents that cares for the public space, which again emphasizes that the Kamogawa Delta Park is representative of the model of public spaces that serves a public good and is generative of civic society, emboldening the public sphere rather than the serving a primarily private, commercial function.

Source Jim Shelton

FIGURE 2.14: Activity and use diagram, Kamogawa Delta Park, Kyoto.

Source Jim Shelton

FIGURE 2.15: Wading in the Kamo River.

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Source Jim Shelton

FIGURE 2.16: Cleaning up trash on the riverbank.

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CONCLUSION The public spaces observed in this study suggest a stark dichotomy between the urban design of Tokyo and Yokohama, and that of Kyoto. This is not to be read as an absolute fact, but rather a small sample of several unique and notable spaces in the three cities. Invariably, there are many exceptions to the conclusions drawn here, particularly as Kyoto’s development and design strategies continue to modernize and transform the urban landscape, Yokohama redevelops its waterfront, and Tokyo grapples with continued urban growth and the impending 2020 Summer Olympic games.

The dichotomy between the observations in Tokyo and Yokohama and those in Kyoto is revealing, however, when considering the edge conditions that separate the public sphere and private property in Japanese public spaces. Notably, in Tokyo and Yokohama, that edge appears to be incredibly blurred and at times completely dissolved. The private sector has a very active role in the creation and maintenance of public spaces, and more often than not in our observations, commercial activity was the driving force behind any type of social use of space. The “public” gathering spaces that were primarily organized as spaces of commerce certainly served a social function for its users, but ultimately lacked the strong civic function that many parks and public gathering spaces seem to serve in the typical Western urban paradigm. In Kyoto, on the other hand, the organic and spontaneous social use of public space, free of private management and a commercial function, appeared to be something many residents took advantage of, suggesting that when the edge separating the public sphere from the commercialized, private sector was more rigidly maintained, a lively public space emerged that appeared to bolster civil society, which is a notably weak element of Japanese politics, culture, and society when compared to many Western countries. A goal of future research may be to explore this connection further, and attempt to aggregate a critical typology of spaces where the distinction between public and private is blurred and where it is firmly maintained, and how that distinction impacts the use and success of said spaces.

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COMMERCIAL EDGES AND THE PRODUCTION OF PUBLIC CULTURE Maggie Clark INTRODUCTION Japanese culture may seem an amorphous concept to the average foreign observer, but one may find it easier to identify the food, fashion, and paraphernalia that portray it. Foreign observers are more likely to grasp these concrete details than the intricate system of public etiquette dictated by custom. Yet just as commerce plays a role in defining cultural artifacts, attributes of physical space can influence cultural acceptance and expectations of public behavior. The connection between space and behavior is not clearly defined, but it may be posited that behavioral freedom or autonomy is possible when the user of a space feels a certain level of control.

This feeling of control is diminished where the space is designed to manipulate use, and use is likely to be manipulated by entities that attract users to a space in the first place. In particular, private commercial forces that occupy or create space have an interest in influencing the use of the space to encourage profitable economic activity. Commercial activity generally aims to attract more people, and etiquette is more stringent in spaces where people are more exposed to the public eye. Domestic activities like sleeping and eating are relegated to more private spaces, where fewer people can observe the behavior. A small but diverse catalogue of typologies suggests that public behavior is more specifically defined and reinforced in spaces edged with commercial activity because they both attract users and manipulate use. Spaces offering opportunities to consume the material and gastronomic building blocks of culture encourage conscious public etiquette while their noncommercial counterparts provide havens for private behavior.

Public and private behavior may be posed as dichotomies, but the distinction is no more black-and-white than is that between commercial and noncommercial.

The concepts exist, rather, on gradients that correspond generally: the more commercial a space is, the more private interests are endeavoring to attract and manipulate use, and the slimmer the chance that private behavior will be exhibited within it. Commercial spaces and noncommercial spaces, for the purposes of this paper, may be either publicly or privately owned. More significant than actual ownership is the perception of ownership.

LITERATURE REVIEW A small body of literature currently addresses these particular connections between space and behavior. A foundational understanding of the Japanese concept of public is of primary importance to the topic. University of Tokyo professor Kayori Hayashi, in an article titled “‘The Public’ in Japan,” uses Japanese writings about the origin of EDGE CONDITIONS

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the concept of public to argue that the word connotes a space belonging to a greater power - that “the public belongs to the master, or Heaven” while the private contains less honorable matters.1 Hayashi asserts that Japanese culture commands adherence to a hierarchy of concerns; one’s private code is always subordinate to the obligations owed to the public realm. Therefore, the public sphere offers “little space...for an individual to pursue his/her subjective autonomy, conduct critical debate with others, and make his/her own judgments.” By Hayashi’s definition, public space is a place to conform to obligatory norms rather than to assert individuality.

Other researchers adapted the idea that commercial space can have a social dimension similar to that of public space. Andrew Ian Burgess identifies the “Role of Convenience Stores as Public Space,” citing their position in Japan as an “architectural space finely balanced between community accessibility and market forces.”2 Matthias Dingjan similarly explores railway stations as public space, but he uses a more commercial lense by examining the role of railway companies in owning and maintaining that space. Delving into the spatial theory and its influences on behavior, Dingjan muses that “if space is a product, then its production and development is controlled by those who control space.”3 His research provided a useful perspective on the role of these companies as a commercial force, and subsequently as architects of human behavior around the stations.

In a series of three papers, multidisciplinary researchers investigated architectural and social elements of public space that differ from typical Western styles. The complete body of research, “Tokyo Public Space Networks at the Intersection of the Domestic and Commercial Realms,” defines a new type of public space that exists between the commercial and domestic spheres. Parts I and III were particularly useful to this research.

The first installment coins the term dividual space, which it defines as “commercial settings that are publicly used as private domestic environments.”4 Comparative case studies offer such examples as love hotels; convenience stores; self-service coffee shops; and manga kissa, or small rooms or cubicles in which users can read for a small hourly fee. The concept of dividual space will be further explored in this paper.

The third installment searches for domesticity in public space on a larger urban scale, specifically looking at transit urban centers (TUCs) like Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Ikebukuro.

Such spaces are identified as a connection for commuters between the domestic realm of their homes and the places they go each day to work, learn, and be entertained. The TUCs are compared by the various domestic amenities they contain, revealing that such necessities are made almost universally accessible by the commercial forces that provide them.5 1

Kaori Hayashi, “‘The Public’ in Japan,” Theory, Culture & Society 23, no. 2-3 (May 1, 2006), doi:10.1177/0263276406023002109.

2

Andrew Ian Burgess, “The Role of Convenience Stores as Public Space,” http://repository.dl.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/dspace/ bitstream/2261/53249/1/K-03626-a.pdf.

3

Matthew Dingjan, “A Railway Station as Public Space,” (n.p., 2014), http://hdl.handle.net/1887/29532.

4

Jorge Almazán Caballero and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, “Tokyo Public Space Networks at the Intersection of the Commercial and the Domestic Realms (Part II) Study on Dividual Space,” Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering 5, no. 2 (2006), doi:10.3130/jaabe.5.301.

5

Jorge Almazán Caballero and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, “Tokyo Public Space Networks at the Intersection of the Commercial and the Domestic Realms (Part III) Study on Transit Urban Centers,” Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering 8, no. 2

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DEFINITIONAL FRAMEWORK The uniqueness and variety of Japanese space makes it difficult to create strict rules around its types and use, but primary research on a limited category of typologies supports the secondary research above by highlighting general trends.

This report will examine the correlation between commerciality, ownership, and behavior in four cases. Definitions will first be established in order to clarify the metrics that prove a connection between commercial edges and public behavior.

COMMERCIALITY Alongside parks provided by municipalities, privately-owned public space is growing rapidly in Japan. Commercial developers are given the opportunity to increase their own development rights by providing space for the public. The phenomenon has given rise to spectacular, sprawling commercial developments that are beginning to serve as focal points and gathering centers. It may be asserted that commercial developers stand to benefit greatly from the creation of communal space as long as the space is being used to generate economic activity in some manner.

In some cases, however, commercial developers are able to appeal to users’ need for private space. As long commutes keep people from their homes for long periods throughout the day, the functions of domesticity are necessarily dispersed to different points throughout the city. Commercial forces are capable of capitalizing upon this need by creating spaces for privacy in pockets among the public exposure.

For the purposes of this report, commerciality will be determined not by whether a space is corporate-owned or government-owned but rather by the opportunities to spend money that are available. Such opportunities will be quantified by the presence of types of retail; some spaces require a ticket or entrance fee, others contain kiosks or shops at which a user may purchase food and amenities, and some hold expensive retail outlets and restaurants. Vending machines were extremely common on street corners and in transit stations. They are therefore indicated here as a retail opportunity that is not specifically designed to attract users to a space, but rather to provide inexpensive, highly accessible amenities to anyone who happens to pass by. The following icons will be used to identify commerciality:

(2009), doi:10.3130/jaabe.8.461.

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OWNERSHIP The owners of commercial space, as discussed, have a distinct incentive to both attract clientele to the area and entice them to spend money. Those with typical commercial interest are therefore generally attempting to increase the number of users in a space, thereby increasing the number of eyes on each user and enhancing the sense of being “in public.” Larger crowds in an area decreases individual autonomy in two ways. First, a user of a space is more likely to be aware of performative social obligations when there are more people around to see his or her behavior. Cultural norms are thereby more strictly enforced simply by the accountability of being watched. This phenomenon gains support from Sensei Hayashi’s definition of public, in which individual autonomy is subordinate to public obligations.

Second, more people using a limited space necessitates that it is used efficiently.

Etiquette that is encouraged in crowded public spaces often serves to facilitate movement of and interaction, or lack thereof, between people in the crowd. It is therefore less likely that a user will feel a sense of control over his or her environment in a heavily occupied space. Owners of commercial spaces have an incentive to encourage conformity and decrease individual autonomy in order to maintain functionality and high traffic.

A sense of control on the part of the individual is possible in spaces not dominated by these commercial interests, or in spaces where the public eye is not constantly upon each user. The following symbols will provide a general concept of the balance of perceived control:

BEHAVIOR A past report conducted by Pratt Institute researchers upon behavior in different types of public space suggests that some of the most extreme regulation comes not from zoning or other traditional land use tools but from social norms.6 Attention to what is acceptable and what is not seemed to be uniformly observed by the vast majority of users of space, regardless of social class.

For the purposes of this study, specific activities have been identified as characteristic of private behavior in that they are generally relegated to the private realm. These activities include sleeping, eating outside the context of a food establishment, playing or exercising, and casual reading. The presence of these activities in a space is a good indicator that the public eye is a less prominent force, and that the user feels enough of a sense of privacy to engage 6

Roxanne Earley et al., Behavior in Japanese Public Space, (New York: Pratt Institute, 2015).

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in behavior inconsistent with public norms. The incidence of these behaviors will be indicated with the following icons:

CASE STUDIES The above definitions provide a succinct method for determining differences between general categories of space. Residential parks, dividual space, commuter space, and corporate urban centers serve as the four typologies studied in this report. Moving along a gradation of very noncommercial to very commercial, the spaces reveal the influence of retail on manipulation of use and the creation of cultural behavior.

1. RESIDENTIAL PARKS In some instances, we observed spaces that were owned and developed by the city with little to no commercial adjacency or profit-generating motive. These parks were generally confined to specific neighborhoods and drew users who were in the area for other reasons, rather than presenting a main attraction in and of themselves. Most of these spaces demonstrated wide accessibility by not excluding any member of society, regardless of social or economic class.

Toyama Park is located near Waseda University and sits within a district of large office buildings. It is edged on two sides by the university and on the other two by public housing. We noted that most of the seating options were single benches and that the park had a large diversity of spaces that allowed users to easily find a solitary corner. There were play areas in which small groups would play soccer or partake in other forms of exercise; these areas were edged with benches that allowed other users to engage in people-watching.

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Source: Google Earth

ABOVE: Aerial view of Toyama Park, Tokyo

The park seemed to be most commonly used as a resting point for people in the middle of the workday or as an access route between work, school, and the trains. It was a convenient private place in which one could smoke, eat, read, and relax when one’s home was far away. Some users even slept; there were a few homeless users who had set up camp, demonstrating the wide accessibility of the space. Our observations of these primarily non-communal uses occurred on a Monday, but it was noted that more groups tended to use the parks on weekends.

This detail supports the idea that the solitary users are taking advantage of a private space after a long commute took them far from their domestic space.

Source: Maggie Clark

ABOVE LEFT: Man sleeping and mother and child relaxing inToyama Park ABOVE RIGHT: Man eating in Toyama Park

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A small park in Kyoto on Manjuji Dori exhibited just as few commercial traits as Toyama Park; a lone vending machine across the street on one side made that particular stretch of road no more commercial than any other spot in the residential neighborhood. The park occupied almost the entirety of the block, sharing with a large nursing home and library that bordered two sides. Apartments faced the park on its other two sides. A small walking path bordered the open space, which was comprised largely of a dirt-floored lot (see Fig. 3.1). Conscientious landscaping lined the path, and there were several benches facing the open space. A small gazebo in the corner sheltered more long benches and small stools.

The park was quiet at 10am on a Sunday morning. A mother accompanied a young boy as he played soccer in the open space, while an elderly man sat on one of the benches reading a newspaper. Beneath the gazebo, a young woman was drawing on a large sketchpad.

Source: Google Earth

ABOVE: Aerial view of Manjuji Dori Koen, Kyoto (pictured center)

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Source: Maggie Clark

FIGURE 3.1: Manjuji Park, Kyoto ABOVE RIGHT: View from gazebo of child playing soccer in Manjuji Park

Source: Maggie Clark

The users were nearly as solitary as those observed on a weekday in Toyama Park, but the design of the park could lead one to imagine that small gatherings were not uncommon in the space. The benches were all long enough to accommodate two or more people, and the tables under the gazebo looked ideal for shared lunches. Unlike Toyama Park, this residential park is not be used as a private respite for long commuters. Instead, it was simple enough to be a useful space for whatever kind of play and relaxation the neighborhood residents wanted to engage in. Use was in no way dictated by any element of the park.

2. DIVIDUAL SPACE The concept of dispersed domesticity, as outlined by Caballero and Tsukamoto (2006), helps explain the utility of lightly-regulated public parks like Toyama as oases for commuters in need of private space. Yet by their non-commercial nature, these parks lack many of the domestic amenities used for private behavior.

Japanese market forces have addressed this need by creating what Caballero and Tsukamoto have called dividual spaces: for a small entrance fee, users can access spaces that allow them to engage in a particular private activity.7 While the spaces are designed to facilitate a specific activity, they are set up to allow the user to perform the activity freely without following behavioral norms.Thus the space is technically programmed by a commercial force, but a feeling of privacy and ownership is cultivated to allow the user to feel in control.

7

Jorge Almazán Caballero and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, “Tokyo Public Space Networks at the Intersection of the Commercial and the Domestic Realms (Part II) Study on Dividual Space,” Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering 5, no. 2 (2006), doi:10.3130/jaabe.5.301.

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The karaoke box is one of several examples of dividual space. Singing and dancing (here labeled as play/exercise) may seem an odd example of private behavior, but this particular type of space follows the specific pattern representative of the category: commerciality is evident only in the small entrance fee and, in some instances, refreshments available for purchase. In exchange, at least one specific private behavior is freely exhibited. Here, users pay a fee to use a private room for a set amount of time and have the option of purchasing food and drinks.

Sound-proofed walls and opaque rooms create a feeling of total privacy that allows users to take ownership of the space and behave in a manner that may fall outside of societal norms.

Source: Neelu Marigoudar

ABOVE: Inside Karaoke box, Tokyo

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Manga Kissa represent another common type of dividual space. A small entrance fee gives users access to a large selection of manga, but they are free to perform other activities such as eating and browsing the internet in the cubicles or small rooms. Drinks are often included for free. Caballero and Tsukamoto also highlight dividual space for other private activities: convenience stores for quick meals when no kitchen is handy, public baths for cleanliness, and love hotels for sexual activity when one is far from one’s bed represent a quintessential examples.8 The ability to access a space for the autonomous exercise of private behavior helps mitigate potential exhaustion associated with constant public etiquette.

3. COMMUTER SPACE As discussed, a city the size of Tokyo necessitates commutes on a regular basis for the majority of residents, who use the city’s various transit options to get to work or school, visit each other, and access shopping and entertainment. Transit space, in some ways, subverts a pattern heretofore established; the more expensive and therefore exclusive a form of transportation is, the more private behavior is accepted. For example, widely accessible subways and buses necessitated more stringent public behavior. In this case, it is not affordability that dictates behavior.

Transportation is a function that is needed by so many people that it does not need commercial edges to attract users. Behavioral rules and manipulation are simply more necessary where large numbers of people are utilizing shared space as efficiently as possible.

8 Ibid.

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While subway stations are scattered with vending machines and small kiosks and shops, no commercial opportunities present themselves aboard the trains. The interior of the trains themselves is similar to the subways of many other global cities: two long benches run the length of either side, while poles and hanging straps provide security for standing passengers. This layout puts subway users almost consistently in the position of watching each other, or rather, more politely, avoiding eye contact. Emptier trains have passengers sitting across from one another, while more crowded subways find people crammed against one another without the luxury of personal boundaries.

Users of the subway in Tokyo are typically very respectful of the norms that keep the

Source: publictransit.us

ABOVE: Interior ofTokyo subway car

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trains functioning efficiently. All passengers are allowed off before new passengers board in a single-file line that moves quickly but does not shove. Users on long rides were commonly seen sleeping or resting their eyes, particularly those who appeared to have had a long day at work, and many commuters read small books as they rode. However, no one ate on the train, and no one spoke on cellphones.

These strict social rules may have stemmed more from an instinct for cleanliness and an aversion to eating on the go or having conversations overheard, but they were, without exception, followed. In general, the example of behavior on Tokyo’s subways may indicate conformity for the sake of efficiency. Still, the inclination to reserve private behavior for more private spaces fits the pattern of the other case studies; even if efficiency was the root cause for subway etiquette, obedience to the etiquette may be more likely because of the public nature of the space.

The Shinkansen, Japan’s bullet train that carries passengers across the country at speeds of up to 186 mph9, is prohibitively expensive for many Japanese citizens. Yet the train’s long trips decrease the need for hyperattentive, efficient movement, and its layout allows passengers to easily ride without looking at one another. Rather than long benches parallel to the train’s edges, the Shinkansen is set up with groups of two or three seats arranged in rows perpendicular to the windows (see Fig. 3.2 below). The seats are designed to allow users to swivel an entire row to face the row behind them, which would be particularly useful for groups traveling together who want to interact during the trip. We took the Shinkansen on four separate occasions, however, and notably did not see a single group exercise the ability to face one another. When we tried it ourselves on a three hour trip from Tokyo to Kyoto, we were obliged to return the seats to their front-facing position to accommodate the privacy of a stranger with whom we were sharing a row.

9

“About the Shinkansen,” Central Japan Railway Company, accessed August 3, 2016, http://english.jr-central.co.jp/about/ highspeed.html.

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Source: Maggie Clark

FIGURE 3.2: Diagram of Shinkansen car

With the urgency of efficiency lifted and the pressure of public eyes diminished, passengers on the Shinkansen are known to sleep, read, drink, and eat food purchased from the station or from a cart that is pushed up and down the aisles throughout the ride.

4. TRANSIT URBAN CENTERS In Japan, many of the transit stations are owned by the railroad companies.10 Their integral role in the movement of people eliminates the need to attract users to the transit itself, but these companies still have an interest in generating profits: the high-quality service they provide is not facilitated by government subsidies but rather funded solely by the rail companies themselves. The companies have therefore ventured into real estate and retail sectors to generate the necessary profits without making ticket prices unaffordable for most residents.11 They manage to create economic activity by fostering massive commercial development around their main hubs. These hubs represent one type of what Caballero and Tsukamodo have named Transit Urban Centers (TUCs): public space developed by commercial forces and in which consumption is arguably the primary focus.

TUCs usually provide spending opportunities for people of all socioeconomic classes with a variety of commercial outlets, from cheap convenience stores to expensive retail outlets. Among the large crowds of people attracted to these centers, private behavior by our definition is rare. The use of occupiable space has been dictated by the type of commerce that borders it, while public etiquette is critical beneath the eyes of so many.

10

Dingjan, “A Railway Station as Public Space.�

11 Ibid.

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Sendai’s main rail station is buried beneath stacks of retail, walled with department stores like Tokyu Hands and speckled with convenience stores and gourmet dessert counters. It is not entirely unique in its appearance and makeup; Tokyo Station and the main rail station in Kyoto, while architecturally distinct are similarly decked out in almost identical commerce. The scale of Kyoto Station is huge and the facade is smooth and mountainous, while inside a user is led from floor to floor by well-mapped signage in a space reminiscent of a shopping mall.

Source: Maggie Clark

ABOVE: View of ourside of Sendai’s main JR station

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Source: Google Earth

ABOVE: Aerial view of Sendai’s main JR Station

While the probable majority of people in the station are drawn by the transportation, there are almost certainly users who have come to shop and eat without any intention of boarding a train. Those who are taking transit may find themselves at the station far earlier than necessary so that they can take advantage of the restaurants and retail. As a result, the need for waiting areas diminished as those waiting to board are able to engage in commercial activity rather than sitting idly, reading, or sleeping. Because restaurants are readily available, eating is confined to the tables of food establishments or, if bento boxes have been purchased, to the train itself (see previous section).

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Source: Google Earth

ABOVE LEFT: Aerial view of Shibuya station area ABOVE RIGHT: View of ourside of Shibuya station area

Source: Maggie Clark

The immense crowds emphasize the space’s public nature, while a general lack of empty space eliminates opportunity for users to appropriate space for their own use. These elements are the responsibility of the nongovernmental entities like JR (Japan Rail Company) and Tokyu Group, who have ownership over the space and a significant amount of control over its makeup and design. However, the stores, restaurants, and other market forces that are actually present have perhaps a more immediate influence on the behavior of users, who are systematically attracted to the activities provided by these commercial edges.

In this way, the use of the space is manipulated by the market and leaves little autonomy to the individual.

CONCLUSION The cases described above represent only brief observations of a miniscule sample of Japanese space typologies, but they hint at the existence of a correlation between commercial edges and behavior norms. Commercial agents, whether they be owners of small convenience stores or non-governmental developers of entire city areas, have an economic incentive to attract users and manipulate their behavior in some way to generate profit. Because commerce attracts more people, it creates spaces that feel more publicly exposed. When users of a space feel that they are being observed, they follow social norms more carefully.

The hypothesis comes to life very differently in the case studies of this report, and it is likely that the influence of commercial edges on behavior plays out in even more various ways in the circumstances of other space typology. The residential parks examined demonstrate that spaces not lined with commercial uses can be much emptier, perhaps cultivating a sense of privacy and a space of respite from the public eye. In the case of Toyama Koen, users were specifically EDGE CONDITIONS

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attracted to that privacy and the autonomy it provides. The cases of dividual space offer an example of commercial forces recognizing that privacy can attract users; people are willing to pay a small fee for space to freely engage in private behavior. One reason private space is sought is that long commutes often keep Japanese residents away from their homes for long periods of the day, making it necessary for them to spend more time in the public realm and have fewer opportunities for private, domestic functions. It is the transit system that facilitates these commutes, and the importance of keeping this critical system functioning smoothly seems to have created a transit etiquette of politeness and efficiency.

Though they perhaps offer fewer spending opportunities than other spaces, transit systems are commercial in themselves and attract a large number of users by necessity. The public nature of these crowded spaces may play a part in incentivizing adherence to social norms. Finally, transit urban centers exhibit a vastly different typology from the previous three because they are designed for commerciality. The variety of their retailers and food offerings attracts a wide range of users and designates the limited space for specific activities. Users may be more inclined to follow the norms created in this spaces because it is nearly unavoidable to be seen; unlike transportation systems, it makes little sense to pretend not to see other users in such a space. Private behavior may therefore be precluded by users’ awareness of the eyes of the public.

Together, the cases begin to build a framework for the connection between commerciality of edges and autonomy of use, and the relationship is a significant one because it holds implications for the design of public space. In a city as large as Tokyo, where residents spend great lengths of time away from their homes throughout the day, people may be deprived of the secured privacy that usually accompanies domestic space. There is a need for surrogate private space to be dispersed throughout the city so that people can find respite from the public eye in a space over which they feel some control. While market forces may be somewhat responsible for creating public spaces in which social norms must be strictly adhered to, they are also stepping up to fill this need for dispersed private spaces. By specifically cultivating an atmosphere in which the user feels some level of autonomy, a technically public space can take on dimensions of the most private domestic realm.

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“What does it mean to rediscover a site through a work of art and make visible what was invisible” Yuji Akimoto, Creating a Place for Aesthetic Experience

INTRODUCTION Japan has a particular way of developing hyper-urbanized environments.

Anonymous buildings that give shape to the vast majority of Tokyo’s urban landscape contrasts with the spaces devoted to the inherited sacred thoughts of Japan. This immense city represents at the same time the pragmatism of modern days, and the cultural structure of Japanese discipline. In fact there is an inclination to describe Tokyo and Japanese culture as chaotic and structured, respectively. This document intends to look into the tension between these two poles, for within these extremes there is something important that speaks to the Japanese culture and its dichotomies. Moreover, this essay explores the ‘void’ as a common denominator in Japanese culture that ties these poles, and that works as a main element in the configuration of urban and architectural space.

Japan has a long tradition of an impeccable architectural language that plays an important role in the construction of urban and architectural spaces, since it is well-rooted in the culture that it speaks of. Both the urban and architectural settings are the physical testimony of the social complexities of Japanese people and their natural environment.1 The analysis of this physical testimony will serve the purpose of this document to compare and examine the evident contrasts of Japanese social behaviors, particularly the pragmatic buildings of Tokyo, and the straightforward spaces designed for the art at Naoshima. The first relates to the prospectus of this report as the profane, and the second as the sacred. Also, the Ryoanji Temple visited in Kyoto will be analyzed, as well as the community based art projects of Yokohama and Mukojima. These three cases will help to explore the different ways of approaching the void in the urban and architectural space of Japan.

1

“Architecture is the incorruptible witness of history, because one can not speak of a great building without recognizing in it the witness of an era, its culture, its society, its intentions ...” Octavio Paz

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Source: http://media.gettyimages.com/

FIGURE 4.1.: “In Zen Buddhist painting, Enso symbolizes a moment when the mind is free to simply point at the body / spirit and create.”

Japansko Društvo. Japan Society - SYMBOL OF JAPAN SOCIETY,” 2013, accessed September 12, 2016, http://japan-society-serbia.org/index.php/aboutus/symbol-of-japan-society.

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LITERATURE REVIEW Yi-Fu Tuan in his book Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience calls for “attention to questions that humanists have posed with regard to space and place,”2 which he calls two “basic components of the lived world” that some take for granted. However, he stresses the fact that the analysis of both concepts - space and place - may bring “unexpected meanings and raise questions we have not thought to ask.” He argues that humans “have an exceptionally refined capacity for symbolization,” which is precisely the subject of this report. Tuan’s book focuses on the analysis of “How the human person, who is animal, fantasist, and computer combined, experiences and understands the world”. In Japan, cities are extensive and complex, and sacred spaces are quiet and refined.

The analysis of the configuration of the space and the places within an urban setting becomes relevant as a way to understand this culture and the existing contrasts with western countries. Yi-Fu Tuan argues that “human spaces reflect the quality of the human senses and mentality,” thus, through the study of the urban environment and architecture, this document seeks to understand better the mentality of Japanese people.

Donald Richie after more than 50 years of living and studying Tokyo states that this city “unlike any Western capital, is built differently and is used differently.”3 The reason for this unusual urban setting, he explains, is “that while some cities (New York, Rome, Istanbul) are still knit together by remains of their past, Tokyo has very few of these.”4 Richi, along with Livio Sacchi cite Roland Barthes and his comments on the structure of Tokyo in which he remarks that the geographical center of the city (i.e. the Imperial Palace) and the street grid are all that remain from the Edo period. In this thinking, the Imperial Palace creates a void in the center of the city. Barthes´ thinking has been influential in informing our understanding of the physical construct of the city, and indeed informs the main ideas presented in my essay. Barthes remarks that, unlike what we can see in Tokyo, western city centers concentrate power, religion, money, goods and the agora. Sacchi goes a step further, arguing that for western cultures, the vacuum at the center of Tokyo might “give rise to a sense of discomfort or worse, to horror vacui (“fear to emptiness”), while instead it results more from the horror plaeni (“fear of fullness”) that is part of Japanese conception of aesthetics.”5

2

Yi-fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), 7.

3

Donald Richie and Joel Sackett, Tokyo: A View of the City (Topographics Series) (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), 7.

4 Ibid,11.

5

Livio Sacchi, Tokyo: City and Architecture, ed. Franco Mercuri (United States: Universe Publishing(NY), 2004), 75-76.

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However, Tokyo and its metropolitan area have kept apace of development.

Richie actually states that “the mere immensity of the place is a large part of its merit.” He adds that “The high-rise structures, the elevated highway networks, the proliferating suburbs are sights familiar to the West, but the city functions in an un-Western manner.” With a lack of zoning, and being “wholly artificial, heavily reliant on surface appearances and essentially comfortable with life not as it was, but as it is,” Tokyo has been developed in a sort of designless “style.”

Momoyo Kaijima, Junzo Kuroda, and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto wrote Made in Tokyo in the early nineties, which provoked a discussion of what they called Da-me Architecture: “anonym[ous] buildings, not beautiful and not accepted in architectural culture to date. In Fact, they are the sort of building[s], which h[ave] been regarded as exactly what architecture should not become.” However, the authors of this book claim that “although these buildings are not explained by Tokyo, they do explain what Tokyo is.”6 Rem Koolhaas’ Delirious New York, among other architectural and urban theories influenced this approach: “the idea that the whole of the contemporary city is made up of a series of accidents, in accordance with inevitable changes to the overall urban plan.”7 In Made in Tokyo, Kaijima, Kuroda and Tasukamoto argue that this is as a result of the high prices of land in Tokyo, as well as a pragmatic, economically driven approach to the development of parcels: “where cultural interests is low, interest in practical issues is high.”

The counterpart of Da-me Architecture and the chaos of the city, is Naoshima.

In Chichu Art Museum: Tadao Ando Builds for Walter de Maria, James Turrell, and Claude Monet Soichiro Fukutake describes the island as “drastically different from the city, where society seems to be overloaded with products and information.” Around the same time when the Made in Tokyo project began, Tetsuhiko Fukutake started to build on the idea of constructing an “environment, where one can find strength and comfort of mind and body, [...] a site where people can sincerely question how “to live well.” He thought that “This should 6

Momoyo Kaijima, Junzo Kuroda, and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Made in Tokyo, 7th ed. (Japan: Koichi Kajima, 2006), 009.

7

Ibid, 011.

Source: http://www.architravel.com/

FIGURE 4.2.: Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima.

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be possible to accomplish apart from religion and language, because the power of art appeals directly to the whole body and to all people.”8 Mr. Fukutake commissioned Tadao Ando, who is known for being able to transform Japanese culture into contemporary architecture, to construct this site. Tadao Ando states that “Architecture is the embodiment of an abstract concept.”9 The Chichu Art Museum was designed around the void, and it has reconfigured the conception of Naoshima, thus adding a new identity to this island.

As was stated in the objective of this essay, the notion of void viewed by Japanese culture as part of the conception of aesthetics is of particular importance for this document.

This concept is related to “Zen ‘silence of the mind,’ for which empty space is an excellent metaphor, as it paves the way for the spiritual conditions that are necessary for inner vision.”10 Temples in Kyoto are good examples of spaces designed for this purpose. Dogen’s masterpiece Shobogenzo written in Kyoto at the beginning of the thirteenth century, helps to better understand the ideas behind Zen discipline, and thus, the purpose of those temples. Shobogenzo is a collection of 75 to 95 essays, concerning among other subjects “important aspects of the Zen religious life.” Finally, a review of Reading Zen in the Rocks: The Japanese Dry Landscape Garden11 written by François Barthier, and a research on Ryoanji “Peaceful Dragon Temple” bring into focus a perspective of Dry Gardens, in particular the case of the Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto: “The physically bare garden allows viewers to reflect towards oneself.

The beauty of the garden lies peacefully inside the enlightenment of the viewer, and not in the materialistic exterior. Zen is the art of the void, and is well-illustrated in the garden of Ryoanji.”12

8

Yuji Akimoto et al., Chichu Art Museum: Tadao Ando Builds for Walter de Maria, James Turrell, and Claude Monet (Germany: Hatje Cantz Pub, 2005), 80.

9

Ibid, 82.

10

Livio Sacchi, Tokyo: City and Architecture, ed. Franco Mercuri (United States: Universe Publishing(NY), 2004), 76.

11

Francois Berthier and Graham Parkes, Reading Zen in the Rocks: The Japanese Dry Landscape Garden (United States: University of Chicago Press, 2000).

12

“Ryoanji “Peaceful Dragon Temple” “Acontext2,” accessed August 1, 2016, http://www.columbia. edu/itc/ealac/V3613/ryoanji/acontext2.htm.

Source: lindsaykunz.com

FIGURE 4.3.: Chichu Art Museum square atrium, Naoshima.

Source: http://www.ohmigallery.com/DB/Images/Ito_Nisaburo

FIGURE 4.4.: Ilustration of the dry garden of Ryoanji, Kyoto.

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METHODOLOGY For the purpose of this research, this document is divided in two sections: “The Profane” and “The Sacred.” The first briefly explores Tokyo and Yokohama, particularly the way Tokyo is structured by the vacuum of the Imperial Palace and the street grid; afterwards, one example of Da-Me Architecture is studied; and finally the Mukujima Networks art Project and the Koganecho Bazaar are described. The second part, reviews “The Sacred” through a short analysis of Kyoto’s Zen spaces, using the Ryoanji Temple as example; and the last part discusses Naoshima as an art, architecture and landscape project, and offers the Chichu Art Museum as an example of architecture structured around the void.

These subjects are described in terms of their physical characteristics, their purpose, and their stakeholders. The means for the analysis are the consulted readings, visits to the sites, and the representation of the urban and architectural spaces through images, maps, architectural drawings (general floor plans and sections), sketches and photos of the case studies.

Source: Lucia de la Mora Colunga

FIGURE 4.5.: Ginkakuji Temple, Kyoto, Japan.

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SIDE A. THE PROFANE “The city I’m referring to [Tokyo] presents this amazing paradox: It does have a center, but this center is empty”.[...] To western minds, this disquieting vacuum might give rise to a sense of discomfort or worse, to a horror vacui (“fear of emptiness”), while instead it results more from the horror pleni (“fear of fullness”) that is part of Japanese conception of aesthetics. Perhaps we can understand this conception better if we compare it to our appraising concept of “silence” or more precisely, to the zen “silence of the mind,” for which empty space is an excellent metaphor, as it paves the way for the spiritual conditions that are necessary for inner vision. Alternatively, it can be linked with catalysing, organizing function, analogous to the role played by the delicate fogs which often cover more or less extensive areas of the landscape in traditional Japanese paintings: an emptiness that “is not visible, but which is highly significant in formal terms.”13

Livio Sacchi. Tokyo: City and Architecture

TOKYO. THE VOID STRUCTURE Tokyo plays a double role in regards to its use of the void. As any other country in the world, Japan is undergoing into an urbanization process. The pressure on the buildable space produces high prices on the land and high profits are expected from its use. This promotes an increasing density that seeks to occupy whatever is considered vacant space, or the space constructed with now useless void.

On the other hand, Tokyo has maintained an important part of Japanese traditions. In the citation that opens this chapter, Roland Barthes notes that the Imperial Palace is a void in the center of the city. Moreover, Donald Richie explains, that the only thing remaining in Tokyo from the Edo period, is the “bare grid of the original streets.”14 These two void elements, the Imperial Palace and the street grid, constitute a main piece of Tokyo’s structure. Livio Sacchi recognizes this gesture as “part of Japanese conception of aesthetics.”15 As such, these two void elements, have been retained, so far.

In brief, the coexistence of the high price of the land, along with the ambitious economic expectations, and the cultural heritage, are what shapes Tokyo today. With that in mind, the case of Da-me Architecture, Mukojima, and Yokohama, will be briefly analyzed in the following paragraphs. Each of these cases have a particular way to keep or fill the voids as much as possible to maintain the heritage or bring new perspectives to already inhabited places.

13

Livio Sacchi, Tokyo: City and Architecture, ed. Franco Mercuri (United States: Universe Publishing(NY), 2004), 75-76.

14

Donald Richie and Joel Sackett, Tokyo: A View of the City (Topographics Series) (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), 11.

15

Livio Sacchi, Tokyo: City and Architecture, ed. Franco Mercuri (United States: Universe Publishing(NY), 2004), 76.

Source: Livio Sacchi, Tokyo: City and Architecture

FIGURE 4.6.: Ito and Tamejiro, Banchiiri. Tokyo zenzu, rail tracks, 1910

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TOKYO. THE CITY CENTER AND THE STREET GRID Tokyo was settled as a result of the power division between the emperor and the military families. The Tokugawa’s bakufu, or military government, “consolidated a base in the region of the eastern Kanto Plain”16 in the early 1600’s. Due to economic and political reasons, the Tokugawa family was gaining effective control over the emperor, shifting the attention from Kyoto to this area of the Japanese island. It was in this period when the Edo castle was built.

As Livio Sacchi explains, Edo was shaped in a concentric form around the castle where the Imperial Palace is still located today. The Yamanote metropolitan railroad line was more or less the ring boundary of the settlement. Within that limit a series of hills and valleys shaped the high and the low lands, where the aristocracy and the merchants, respectively constructed their properties. The street grid was tied to this topography, shaped “radially along the crests of the hills, form the castle toward the outskirts.”17 During the second half of the 17th century, along with the Meiji restoration the government was established in Tokyo. After that, the city was a strong influenced

by Western modernity, resulting in the transformation of the urban landscape.

However, Tokyo has kept most of the traditional street grid with out any superimposed system of axes as in the cases of other urban areas in the world.

The structure made by the center of the hills that surrounded the Imperial Palace, and where the aristocracy used to live, is still kept, but now as subcenters laid out around transportation hubs, like Shinjuku or Sumida.

In summary, the hierarchy of the city neighborhoods is still based on this inherited shape tied to the Edo Castle - now the Imperial palace - and its radial streets. It has not just been the numerous fires and war attacks that left Tokyo with such a few number of historic elements. It has also been a decision of what to keep from the dynamic of the urban and economic development of the city. In other words, what can be substituted with a more useful element in terms of the current needs. Viewed from this perspective, the void occupied by the Imperial Palace and the city grid, is still considered useful elements for the current needs of the Japanese people.

16

Andrew Gordon and Harvard, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 5-13.

17

Livio Sacchi, Tokyo: City and Architecture, ed. Franco Mercuri (United States: Universe Publishing(NY), 2004), 75-77.

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Source: Kaijima, Momoyo, Junzo Kuroda, and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto. Made in Tokyo. 7th ed. Japan: Koichi Kajima, 2006.]

FIGURE 4.7.: Drawing of Da-Me Architecture buildings.

DA-ME ARCHITECTURE In the immensity of Tokyo, architectural uniqueness is a huge luxury. Actually, the vast majority of the buildings are not iconic, but rather pragmatic. Some reasons for this are the high prices of the land and the economic vigority of the city. Economic pragmatism is a common architectural and and planning determini factor all around the world; however, the combination of uses found in Tokyo seems quite unique. Momoyo Kaijima, Junzo Kuroda, and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto recognize this as an important part of the city’s identity, and during the decade of the 1990’s decided to document a group of these buildings. They called these constructions Da-me Architecture, which is described in their book Made in Tokyo as it follows: “The buildings of made in Tokyo are not beautiful. [...] They are not ‘pieces’ designed by famous architects. What is nonetheless respectable about these buildings, Is that they don’t have speck of fat. What is important right now is constructed in a practical manner by the possible elements of the place. They don’t respond to cultural context and history. Their highly economically efficient answers are guided by minimum effort. In Tokyo, such direct answers are expected. They are not imbued with the scent of culture; they are simply physical ‘building’.”18 Da-Me Architecture is not concerned with the void. In fact, it seeks to fill the space as much as possible (or even more) to benefit from the profits that this could bring.

18

Momoyo Kaijima, Junzo Kuroda, and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Made in Tokyo, 7th ed. (Japan: Koichi Kajima, 2006), 012.

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SUPER CAR SCHOOL BUILDING This singular mixed-use building contains a two story supermarket and a driving school on the rooftop. The construction that occupies almost an entire block, is “framed by the curve of the railroad [...] expressed directly in the extruded volume of the building.”19 As one can observe in the picture, there is no void only pure volume.

Ventilation and illumination at the core of the building must always rely on artificial systems.

The rooftop is designed to imitate the urban environment in order to help new drivers to feel comfortable behind the wheel. This includes street lights, and a practice slope for hand brake. On the street level the facade does not relate much to the context, leaving the already uninviting railroad tracks even more undesirable to walk through. This mostly closed facade serves as sign support directed towards the train users.

As the authors of Made in Tokyo explain, there is usually a strong separation between architecture and civil engineering, or between architectural and urban planning. This separation result in design that often times does not relate infrastructure with other uses.

The “Super Car School Building” relates commercial use with infrastructure, erasing the separation between design, engineerings and urban planning. A lot could be learned about these cross categories type of buildings, where architecture, engineering, urban planning, advertising, and other professions could come together, to design space in a more comprehensive way.

19

Momoyo Kaijima, Junzo Kuroda, and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Made in Tokyo, 7th ed. (Japan: Koichi Kajima, 2006), 098.

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THE VOID AS ELEMENT OF CONFIGURATION IN THE URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL SPACE OF JAPAN Lucia de la Mora Colunga

MUKOJIMA NETWORKS ART PROJECT The Mukojima Networks Art Project, started more than 10 years ago with a group of inhabitants, town planners and architects interested in developing strategies that take into account the identity and quality of urban space. Its main objective is to create an open forum for discussions on the future of the neighborhoods, and a model for the introduction of new ideas into the process of urban renewal.20 Especially focused on the lowlands of Mukojima and Kyojima in Tokyo, this Network’s concrete approach is to plan each intervention as part of a whole, using the underutilized potential of the neighborhood. In other words, “open lots, empty houses, the voids, and the in-between spaces“21 are being used as artist residencies, as well as art, city planning, and architecture exhibitions, which involve the community in the discussion, and thus the creation of the above mentioned strategies.

The founders of the Mukojima project notes that “Though it is still easy to read the structure of the traditional city here, recent social and economic transformations are reshaping the neighborhood.

The amazing variety and the human qualities of the townscape found in places like Mukojima and Kyojima are more and more giving way to a faceless city where public space is an anonymous no-mans-land.”22 In conclusion, The Mukojima Network Art Project, is similar to Da-Me architecture, in the sense that it is seeking to fill what is considered to be underutilized space. However, in this case the void is being occupied to encourage the community to reflect on the future shape of their neighborhood space.

20

“Mukojima.Net,” accessed August 7, 2016, http://mukojimanetworks.com/mukojimanet_engl/basics_engl.html.

21 Ibid 22 Ibid

Source: Lucia de la Mora

Source: Lucia de la Mora

FIGURE 4.8.: Narrow street in Mukojima

FIGURE 4.9.: Floor plan of an artist residence in a Nagaya (long house).

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Source: Lucia de la Mora Colunga

Source: http://machimise.net/

FIGURE 4.10.: Artist residence.

FIGURE 4.11.: [Town and the city] / Fumee. MARI MAEDA.

Source: http://machimise.net/

FIGURE 4.12.: Mukojima overview map with the location of art and various activist groups sptos

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[Image Credit Here]

ABOVE LEFT: Write brief image caption here. ABOVE RIGHT: Write brief image caption here.

Source: http://www.art-it.asia/u/ab_andrewm/nYUjNxaBH4CZfKwo7SRm?lang=en

YOKOHAMA. KOGANECHO BAZAAR The Koganecho area after WWII became a red light district in need of an urban project that would reverse the deterioration of the neighborhood. A concentration of illegal activities, such as prostitution and drug commerce proliferated in the space underneath the railroad tracks. Due to a growing displacement effect, the community called for government intervention. An interesting strategy was designed, involving the neighborhood community, artists, universities, environmental groups, the railway company who owns the occupied land, and the local police.

The area underneath the railroad tracks was cleared by the police, displacing the illegal activities. The government bought the “small shops” where prostitution used to take place and the vacant area under the railroad was free to be repurposed.

Consequently, the Koganecho Area Management Center was founded in 2008 as a non-profit organization that would coordinate continuous and comprehensive planning projects and activities around the railroad tracks. Today, the “small shops” are renewed in different ways to host Japanese and international artist, bringing new participants into the area. The Koganecho Bazaar every month during the summer holds a series of events such as open studios and exhibitions, to which the community is invited to be engaged and participate.23 In this case, the void space underneath the railroad tracks had lost its relevance before it was taken by the groups involved in illegal activities. The Koganecho Area Management Center and its participants are filling a void created, probably by the war and the agreement between the local government and the Railway company pertaining to the street level underneath the tracks.

23

KOGANECHO AREA MANAGEMENT CENTER, October 1, 2016, http://www.koganecho.net/contents/town-planning.html.

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1

1

2

1 Square Staircase 2 Underpass Studio D. Conclave 3 Underpass Studio C. Workshop 4 Underpass Studio B. Cafe 5 Underpass Studio A. Gallery Keiky u Ma in Lan e

Keikyu Main Lane

Main facilities Railroad tracks Source: Lucia de la Mora Colunga

FIGURE 4.12.: Koganecho bazar site plan

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River

N

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SIDE B. THE SACRED “It must be stressed that a ‘sense of place’ does not negate an objective awareness of the static or homogenous quality of topological space. Rather, it infuses the objective space with an additional subjective awareness of lived, existential, non-homogenous space. It also incorporates a recognition of the activities which ‘take place’ in a particular space, and different meanings a place might have for various individuals or cultures.”24

Gunter Nitschke

MA AND THE SENSE OF SPACE, PLACE AND VOID IN JAPAN The meaning of the words space, place and void have profound differences within the Japanese and the the western cultures. An analysis on those words is of primary importance since one of the purposes of this document is to compare and examine the evident contrasts of Japanese social behaviors through the physical environment.

Japan has inherited from China the character pronounced as ma, which mean different aspects of space, place and void, depending on the context in which it is written. Gunter Nitschke in his article “MA: Place, Space, Void,”25 translates ma as “place.” He explains that the ma pictorial sign “fully expresses the two simultaneous components of a sense of place: the objective, given aspect and the subjective, felt aspect.”26 Ma is also related to Zen discipline and its understanding of “emptiness” or “void.” Authors, such as Eido Shimano Roshi, Charles Vacher, Gunter Nitschke or Lewis Richmond explain that the meaning of buddhist “emptiness” is usually misunderstood in Western cultures. This essay does not pretend to explain this concept, nor the meaning it has for the Japanese people. It rather seeks to stress the importance this concept has for the traditional Japanese understanding of space. It also intends to clarify that for the Japanese people, emptiness does not mean nothingness. And that places constructed in Japan, such as gardens, do not “have a merely decorative function, but also [possess] a symbolic meaning.”27 24

“MA: Place, Space, Void,” KYOTO JOURNAL, 1972, accessed August 13, 2016, http://www.kyotojournal.org/the-journal/culture-arts/ma-place-spacevoid/#_ftn1. written by Gunter Nitschke was based on a talk given at Cornell University in June 1976 at the Topical Seminar on Time and Space in Japanese Culture, sponsored by the Joint Committee on Japanese Studies.

25 Ibid 26 Ibid 27

Francois Berthier and Graham Parkes, Reading Zen in the Rocks: The Japanese Dry Landscape Garden (United States: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 12.

Source: Lucia de la Mora Colunga

FIGURE 4.13.: Ryuhonji Temple, Kyoto.

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Source: Francois Berthier and Graham Parkes, Reading Zen in the Rocks: The Japanese Dry Landscape Garden (United States: University of Chicago Press, 2000).

FIGURE 4.14.: Floor plan of the dry garden of the Ryoanji Peaceful Dragon Temple

THE RYOANJI TEMPLE A good example of a place dedicated to the experience of emptiness as understood by Zen discipline is the Ryoanji Peaceful Dragon Temple, where one of the most iconic dry gardens of Japan was constructed around the fifteenth century. This space is made out of pale brown gravel surrounding fifteen scattered rocks in a rectangular space. A slightly elevated wooden deck stands next to one of the longer sides of the rectangle providing the viewer with a comfortable location to contemplate this space. As all Zen gardens, the Ryoanji stone garden “did not have a merely decorative function, but also possessed a symbolic meaning.”28 It was designed to express Buddhist beliefs with the lived experience of space, rather than with words.

Gunter Nitschke explains that the carefully arranged set of gravel and rocks is so well designed, the viewer “thrown onto the experience per se — consciousness,”29 ceases to experience the elements separately. This experience, Nitschke notes, is the observation of emptiness. For Buddhists, “[a]rchitecture, gardening, painting or poetry, that is, some highly sophisticated setting of form and non-form, is necessary to ‘experience’ the void in the above sense.”30

28

Francois Berthier and Graham Parkes, Reading Zen in the Rocks: The Japanese Dry Landscape Garden (United States: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 12.

29

“MA: Place, Space, Void,” KYOTO JOURNAL, 1972, accessed August 13, 2016, http://www.kyotojournal.org/the-journal/culture-arts/ma-place-spacevoid/#_ftn1.

30 Ibid

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NAOSHIMA. VOID, ART, ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE. The Chichu Art Museum in Naoshima is a recently designed space that ties together most of the ideas and case studies exposed in this essay. It is at once, a space configured around the void, a place thought to invite people to reflection and a project to repurpose a territory that was losing its population.

The Banesse House, the Art House Project and The Chichu Art Museum are the three pioneer cultural projects of Naoshima Island, located in the National Park of the Seto Inland Sea. The three cultural projects seek to integrate art, architecture and landscape, and the three of them are made in collaboration with Tadao Ando. However, each of these art projects differ in time and site context. The Banesse House (1992) is a hotel and museum complex in the south of the island that “commissions site-specific works to be installed both in and around the complex, including the surrounding lawn, woods, and beaches.”31 The Art House Project (1998) is a group of “one- to two-hundred-yearold houses, temple sites, and shrines”32 located in a small town on the eastern side of the island. This project intends to turn the selected traditional sites into “a work of art in the form of a building.”33 The Chichu Art Museum is the most recent of these three projects (2004) and its purpose is to create “a place for aesthetic experience,” “a spiritual space where one confronts art directly with one’s own strength.”34 It holds four permanent pieces of art in four spaces designed specifically for each of them. The piece and its surrounding space are an indivisible one.

31

FIGURE 4.15.: Benesse House Hotel by Tadao Ando, Naoshima.

Yuji Akimoto et al., Chichu Art Museum: Tadao Ando Builds for Walter de Maria, James Turrell, and Claude Monet (Germany: Hatje Cantz Pub, 2005), 83.

32 Ibid 33 Ibid 34

Source: “Benesse House | Benesse Art Site Naoshima,” July 15, 2016, accessed September 13, 2016, http://benesse-artsite.jp/en/ stay/benessehouse/.

Ibid, 81

Source: http://www.architravel.com/

FIGURE 4.17.: Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima.

Source: Minhouse1227,” September 13, 2016, accessed September 13, 2016, https://www.flickr.com/photos/58053102@N02/.

FIGURE 4.16.: Minamidera is a piece made by James Turrell and Tadao Ando for the Art House Project. This work of art is enclosed in a space only open by the entrance and exit doorways. In its dark interior, the spectator needs to wait 15 minutes before his or her eyes turn capable to see the work of art made out of subtle light.

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Chichu Art Museum designed by Tadao Ando is architecture in negative, space dug up in the landscape of the south-east of Naoshima. The museum is a cloister of void atriums in the volume of a hill, making space for emptiness. Each of these atriums functions as a transition from one area of the museum to another, and from one of the four pieces of art, to another, enclosing the visitor in a rhythmic procession of light/shadow, interior/exterior.

The Chichu Art Museum is related to Tokyo and The Ryoanji Temple case studies through the analysis of void as part of the Japanese conception of aesthetics and the notion of a space devoted to transmitting a concept through experience rather than through words. In Tokyo and in Naoshima, the void is the element that configures the space.

Source: Lucia de la Mora Colunga

FIGURE 4.18.: Chichu Art Museum section plan

Source: Lucia de la Mora Colunga

FIGURE 4.19.: Chichu Art Museum floor plan

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CONCLUSION Void is an abstract concept that needs to be understood through the context (time and place) in which it is described. For that reason the notion of void can reveal important characteristics of the context that defines it. In other words, void is a word that describes and it is described by its context.

The case studies examined in this essay reveal different kinds of voids present in the contemporary Japanese culture. Some of them, The Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto for example, are related to void spaces that symbolize the cultural heritage that is still representing strong values of the Japanese social structure, such as the Zen conception of aesthetics. This conception of void emphasizes the contrasts between Japan and Western cultures, since it was created in a moment of isolation. Some other void spaces analyzed in this work are related to more recent social behaviors developed since Japan opened relations with the rest of the world. These kind of void spaces came with the cultural and commercial relationships established between Japan and the rest of the world, either in the postwar period or during the current days, for example Yokohama and Mukojima. Tokyo and Naoshima are particularly important case studies, because in both places, the two above mentioned voids converge. Both, Tokyo and Naoshima symbolize the heritage, but also the contemporary, the roots but also the current direction Japan is taking, the point of reference and the questions Japanese culture is posing to itself.

The urban setting developed in societies of consumption and the cultural base of Japanese disciplines constitute the social and physical structure of the Island. Neither of the two components are disassociated from today’s Japanese people, and this reflects into their urban environment.

A more in-depth view should be given into the void made by societies of consumption, of which Japan

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PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BOUNDARIES IN JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE Facundo Nuñez INTRODUCTION According to the scholar of Japanese studies, Alex Kier, Japanese society sees the natural environment as a constant threat, and therefore there exists a necessity of building boundaries around it. Even though, during the last fifty years, government and construction companies have been lobbied this idea within the collective imaginary, this perception can be tracked through Japanese history and religion.

Randall Nadeau, in her study about Tori gates, states the importance of the demarcation between two kinds of space: the profane space “outside” and sacred space “inside” in Shinto religion and Japanese society. She argues that one of the main reasons of the construction of these boundaries, between the pure and orderly inside and the chaotic outside, is the threatened characteristic of the natural environment of japan. Nadeau states that in Japanese collective imaginary “The “inner” is peaceful, spontaneous, healthy, simple and good; the “outer” is troubled, dirty, chaotic, ill, false and bad.”1 The intention of this paper is exploring the material and symbolic boundaries that separate the “inner space” and “outer space”. Starting with the seawall in Sendai coast that divides the natural and man-made environment analyzing the very concept of “natural” in the Japanese imaginary.

Secondly, we try to decode the intricate layout of the Machiya and the division of the private and public space in lords’ villas, sometime lacking of a specific physical boundary but with strong symbolic edges.

Lastly, we break down the demarcation that divided sacred and profane spaces in Kyoto temples.

1 2

Randall Nadeau, Dimensions of Sacred Space in Japanese Popular Culture (Trinty Univ.1996) Keer Alex, Dogs and Demonds (New York, 2001)

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PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BOUNDARIES IN JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE Facundo Nuñez

NATURAL-MAN-MADE ENVIRONMENT. CASE OF STUDY: SENDAI’S SEAWALL Japan’s territory is made up of 6,852 islands in total. The country is located in one of the most unstable geographic areas in the world. As many as 1,500 earthquakes are recorded yearly, leaving razed cities with numerous fatalities.

In 1923, the Kanto earthquake left almost 130.000 mortal victims; these natural hazards have shaped the Japanese society, its religion, philosophy, art, etc.

According to Alex Kier, even though the reverence for the land lies at the very core of Shintoism, postindustrial japan has started a “fight against natural factor”.

According to Kier, this is a main feature in the relationship between japan and its natural environment. “Japan is speeding forward into a culture where the divorce [between natural and man-made] is final and irreparable, in which everything old and natural is “dirty” and even dangerous.” Kier, Alex.

Contrary to the analysis of Kier, Shintoism scholars such as Randall Nadeau and Fukagawa Hidetoshi state that this particular relationship, between Japanese natural environment and Japanese society, is not a postindustrial feature, and it lays in the very Shintoism religion philosophy.

Even though these authors disagree in the roots of this relationship, we can find that both agree that Japanese society considers that nature and the exterior share negative characteristics, and therefore there is a need of building barriers that separate them from this environments.

In 2011 an oversea earthquake followed by a tsunami killed 15,894 and washed up many towns and cities around the pacific coast. After the tsunami, many towns such as Yuriage around Sendai were washed up. This natural phenomenon is frequent in the coast of Japan and for many years cities have suffered the devastating consequences of these phenomena.

According to Alex Kier, in the last 20 years japan has suffered of a severe case of “pave and built”, proof of this is the high rates of concrete consumption in the last years (in 1994, concrete production in japan totaled 91.6 millions tons, U.S. 77.9 millions tons). Many of this concrete were used to modify japan natural environment in works such as dams, seashore, etc. “By the end of the century, the 55 percent of the shoreline that had been encased in concrete had risen to 60 percent or more”. Kier, Alex.

Even though, Alex Kier blames this trend of modify the environment to the economic engineer of the construction economy and its political branch, there is a symbolic argument that lies behind these trend.

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In the case of the concrete seawall in the coast of Sendai we can argue that it is a defense of the continuous threat posed by sea, however in a symbolic realm, the wall represents the physical boundary between the man-made environment and the natural one, the first orderly and controlled, the second chaotic and threatening.

The Sendai seawall is not a new solution for the typhoon and tsunami threat, many years before the 2011 tsunami, the region started to build a 7.2 meters concrete seawall that was going to serve as a defense of these natural hazards.

One documentary film in the Sendai airport shows one inhabitant of the area describing the pride of having a wall that protected the city from flooding. Even though, the seawall was not able to stem the tide and many areas around Sendai were washed up in 2011 tsunami, the solution today seems to make the wall higher.

Source: Senday Sea-Wall

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PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BOUNDARIES IN JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE Facundo NuĂąez

PUBLIC-PRIVATE According to the author Randall Nadeau, the interior of the Japanese houses has a rank of sacred space. Private space, within the Nippon society, becomes an area of sanctuary, which serves as a shelter of the profane, chaotic, and threatening exterior. This estimation that Japanese society gives to the private space is observed in the different thresholds that one has to cross to penetrate the interior of a Japanese house and the high value that private property has in the Japanese constitution.

PAVILIONS Even though the traditional architecture of the Japanese villa houses in the Edo period, according to James Chakraboty, was characterized by having a flexible definition of the boundary between exterior and interior, these residences were located within private gardens and hidden from the public view by boundary walls. (Image of walls and gates in imperial houses).

These boundary walls and gates, that divide the interior of the property and the exterior, share some features that could be compared with the processional experience of penetrating a sacred space. In the case of the edges of villas such as the golden pavilion and silver pavilion, walls are sometimes materialized with wooden frames and stone, according to Kathleen James a material extremely unusual in Japanese architecture.

In Japanese tradition gates are not only an element where the boundary wall is interrupted to result in a link between the exterior and interior. Beyond the defensive need, gates in Japanese tradition combine power and religious meaning. Each gate of these residential complexes shows an elaborate architecture, which mixes different elements and belongs to different styles, uses and users. The roof in these constructions is the dominant feature such as in most of the entire traditional Japanese architecture. The heaviness of the roof intimidates both those who observe it from outside, and those who pass it.

Source: Gates. Facundo Nunez

Gates: Facundo Nunez

Beyond the roof of the gates, one can observe that the pattern of the floor changes, from a rustic stone to a more polished surface, when the user crosses the boundary between exterior and interior. Symbolical, this treatment of the floor goes back to the notion of a pure inside and dirty outer.

In most cases, a small size canal of water goes underneath of the gate. Again, the meaning of purification, through the water element, gets very explicit such as in religious entrances.

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Source: Gates. Facundo Nunez

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PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BOUNDARIES IN JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE Facundo Nuñez

MACHIYA Contrary to the typology previously analyzed, Machiya typology is implanted within the urban environment, and due that this type of building integrates housing and commercial uses; the boundary between private and public becomes diluted in different layers. This becomes evident when we analyze the historic modification of the property line after the Edo period, where the physical boundary between private and public disappears to become in a vacuum space content between the sidewalk, the kōshi of the Machiya and its cantilever. Even though, this space lacks of a physical boundary, it has a strong symbolic content. Such as the gates and porches in the lord’s villas, these in between spaces serve as a transitional area between the impure exterior and pure interior. To accentuate this experience, many of these spaces have a recipient filled with salt, an element of purification in Japanese tradition. Once one crosses this in-between space, the first vertical boundary one will find is the kōshi, this element works as a screen that sieves the sunlight from the street and gives privacy to the interior. According to Tsuyoshi Kinagawa, from the main entrance of the Machiya, there are two possible routes.

The first one is considered for public uses and Shinto ceremonies; the second route is used for accessing to the private rooms and closed ceremonies such as the Buddhist ceremony, where only members of the family can participate. Here the division between public and private is not materialized with vertical boundary, it is produced by an intricate layout of rooms and hallways. Similar to cities built during the Edo period where straight streets might conclude in T-intersection to hinder the access to outsiders.

Private Property Limit After Edo Period

Private Property Limit Before Edo Period

Source: Machiya. Facundo Nunez

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PUBLIC-PUBLIC TOYAMA PARK In the last twenty years, cities in the American and European continent have been confiscating the public space, and one of the first sign of this; it is the construction of fences around these spaces. Once a space accessible for all 24-7 becomes in a space closed at night and under surveillance. The main argument of this trend is the lack of safety in public spaces (something that I don’t believe). During a visit to Toyama Park near Waseda University, one of the topics that pop out was the different boundary around the Toyama Park. After a quick survey of the park and its relation between its surroundings, we found that fences were not a security measure, but they responded to a need of delimitation between uses.

Even though there were public spaces that could be integrated, such as Public housing, parks, and educational institutions, the need of divide and create boundaries around each land is a feature of the Japanese society. Each use should be segregated from the other and each space has a specific function.

Boundary: Park- Street- Social Housing

Boundary: Park- University

Boundary: University -Park- Social Housing

Boundary: Park-Strret- University

Boundary: Park- Office Building

Boundary: Park- Street- Residential

Source: Borders in Wesada Park. Facundo Nunez

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PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BOUNDARIES IN JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE Facundo Nuñez

BOUNDARIES-SACRED AND PROFANE SPACES According to the Japanese Shintoism religion, Kamis are spiritual divinities that represent natural phenomenon. These divinities are usually represented with angry expressions and, different from pious gods, they are looking for destruction and revenge.

According to the Randall Nadeau, the final expression of the separation between sacred spaces and profane spaces in Shintoism and Buddhism is the Tori gates. We can find the all around japan and many of them does not divide sacred spaces as temples, however, we should consider that for japan, its land is a sacred place. The best example of this thinking is the tori gate placed in the coast of Itsukushima, that divide the islands of japan and the rest of the world.

During our visit in Japan, we analyzed boundaries and in my personal documentation the boundaries between the sacred and profane spaces. We can argue that there are some elements that are common in all the temples.

Firstly, the Tori gates that are the most prominent element in the Shintoism and Buddhism sacred spaces. Secondly, walls and gates that typical are placed in urban temples and divide private or sacred (temples) and public spaces (streets). Thirdly, changes in the pattern of the floor. Lastly, the Kekkai and element of demarcation that demarcate sacred land.

“Tori gates are symbolic markers indicating the boundary between two kinds of space: profane space and sacred space” 3. Designs vary depending of the cult. In the case of Buddhism, its gates are composed only by two columns and a lintel. Shintoism tori gates differ in that they have two lintels.

According to Randall, Tori gates are not only a distinction between the sacred and profane, but also the separation between a “pure” inner and “impure” outer. During our visit in Japan, we could observe the difference between the floor inside temples and sacred spaces and the outside of them. One important observation was that outside the temples the floor is usually more rustic than the floor inside the temples. This type of design agrees with the concept of a “pure or clean” inner and “impure or dirty” outer.

In the case of walls around temples located in urban environments, we can find a pattern in the use of some construction elements. Water ditches are usual around the walls. These ditches had a three main raison d’etre. Firstly, a defensive function in the war times. Secondly, these ditches were used as a bellow in case of earthquake. Lastly, the water of these ditches again plays as a purification element for visitors who come from the profane outside. In the case of some Budist themples, the ditches are filled with Loto flowers, an strong symbol of this religion.

Another interesting feature in walls around the temples is the dematerialization of the northeast corner. According to Buddhist religion, the organs of Vaastu Purush are connected with the building of the temple. The head of Vaastu Purush is located in the northeast corner and therefore, the Northeast should be kept free from heavy structures like pillars, etc. This tradition dates back to Indian traditional construction, where the northeast corner should be always be clean and pure.

3 Randall Nadeau, Dimensions of Sacred Space in Japanese Popular Culture (Trinty Univ.1996)

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CONCLUSION Many specialists analyze the use of the land in different culture through an economic perspective. This trend becomes very evident in western cultures.

However, when we analyze japan, we should introduce the religious concepts for a better understanding.

Buddhist and Shinto tradition have an important impact in the way Japanese society uses and modifies its environment. This paper has shown that behind the economic and social factor, religion lays strongly in the demarcation of the property.

Sometimes, borders in Japan can seem diffuse due the lack of physical boundaries; however, there are invisible culture layers that divide the spaces in a strict way.

Religion has been in every culture a way to protect ourselves from the inevitable fate of the death and its spaces, a physical shelter that protects us from the loneliness of human existence against our environment.

Torii Gate in Miyajima Island.

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SEARCHING FOR BOUNDARIES: SPATIAL ARTICULATION IN JAPAN Karina Leung INTRODUCTION Prior to visiting Japan, the research aim of this chapter was to focus on evaluating vertical boundaries of public space, assessing the façade treatment and permeability of these boundaries. These nuances of the vertical boundaries are of interest in Western cities for their impact on the spatial quality of the most elemental urban public spaces—the street and the square. When Rob Krier presented his “typological and morphological elements of the concept of urban space” in 1979, he investigated spaces from the ancient agoras in Greece to public squares in contemporary European cities to develop an encyclopedia of public space.1 This extensive catalog of the formal variations to the boundaries of public spaces by and large focuses on spaces defined by a single, flat ground plane, typically enclosed by walls (Fig. 6.1).

During our time in Japan, it became clear that the focus on the nuances of the vertical boundary of public space was rooted in the very Western notion of defining “space” as being essentially projections upwards of a boundary demarcated on a ground plane. It was not in fact the nuances of the boundary, but the shape and structure that defined often multi-layered public spaces that should be subject to study. Whereas public space in the Western context is essentially a backdrop for 1

Rob Krier, Urban Space (London: Academy Editions, 1979).

FIGURE 6.1: Krier’s morphological study of urban spaces examined typologies of the vertical boundary in plan and section, however the ground plane was largely assumed to be uniformly flat.

Source: Rob Krier

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the activities of the street, the life of the city, in Japan, there was a wholly different relationship of self to space experienced.

Barrie Shelton (1999) describes the Japanese approach to spatial articulation as “areal” as opposed the Western practice of designing space in a linear fashion via the use of walls.2 Yoshinobu Ashihara (1992) also discusses the insignificance of the wall (which is often the focus of Western architecture), describing Japanese architecture as “floor-oriented.”3 Thus the focus of this chapter is not exclusively on the self-contained element of a vertical boundary and how this impacts space; this chapter is instead focused on analyzing the space of public space itself through form, boundary quality, and spatial experience.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND DISCUSSION AREAL PERCEPTION OF SPACE From literature on Japanese urban design and structure, several themes appeared that are significant to the analysis of Japanese public space. First and foremost, the “areal” concept of space is critical. Shelton (1999) states: “One fundamental difference between Japanese and Western thinking about space is that the former has more affinity with area (hence the importance of the tatami mat and the floor in building and the machi as an areal unit of organization in the city) while the latter has more to do with line (with an emphasis on linear phenomena like walls in building and the sequential ordering of buildings along city streets).”4

Shelton provides support of how this difference in spatial perception between Japanese and Western cultures is manifested in the written language, in layout of homes, and in the addressing and ordering of cities such as Tokyo.

With regards to language, both the method of learning to write and the way in which meaning is derived from the written language are significant. Children learning to write in English do so with a series of horizontal guidelines, using these to build the form of characters, that then must be grouped together to create any form of meaning. Japanese children learn to write using grids, learning to create characters as they relate to the space of a square (Fig. 6.2).5 Similarly, the addressing system in place throughout Toyo and much of Japan reflects the areal approach to space in the culture. Whereas buildings in Western cultures are identified 2

Barrie Shelton, Learning from the Japanese City: West meets East in Urban Design (London: E & FN Spon, 1999).

3

Yoshinobu Ashihara, The Hidden Order: Tokyo through the Twentieth Century (Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd., 1992).

4 Shelton, Learning from the Japanese City, vii.

5

Source: Barrie Shelton

FIGURE 6.2: Learning to write kanji (top) and Roman (bottom) characters

Ibid., 11-13.

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Karina Leung

FIGURE 6.3: Area maps showing machi names, chome numbers, and block numbers are common throughout Japanese cities. The address of the map, “2-1, Roppongi,” means the map is located in Roppongi (the name of the machi) chome 2, block 1 (see green boxes, above right).

The boundary of “Roppongi chome 2 is outlined in blue (above right).

by the street name along which they face and a sequential number along such street. Japanese addresses are defined by a hierarchy of spatial divisions. A building in Tokyo is identified by its building number, block, chome, and machi. A machi is approximate to a neighborhood within a city, and is named. Each machi is divided into numbered chomes, which are comprised of several numbered blocks (Fig. 6.3). The building number is added to the sequence of chome and block numbering, though, like the numbering of chomes or blocks within a machi, there is not necessarily a strict sequence for building numbering.

The street, which is the primary means of recognizing location for Western addresses, plays no role in Japanese addresses. In fact, many streets lack names, and in Tokyo, “[s]ome of the great avenues (dori) are only a recent exception; they have been named only to follow Western usage, and in any event, they are not used in addresses.”6 Western addresses define a point along a linear path and reduce a building’s location to its primary edge. Japanese addressing indicates an approximate location in space through successive series of increasingly granular spatial divisions.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE FLOOR AND THE INSIGNIFICANCE OF THE WALL Following the proposition that space is perceived as areal rather than linear, it is important to understand the way in which space is articulated in Japanese architecture. Architectural spaces are defined by the floor, wall, and ceiling, but there is a wholly different prioritization of these elements to articulate space in Western and Japanese architecture. This approach to articulating interior space has an analog in the articulation of public space.

6

Livio Saachi, Tokyo: City and Architecture (New York: Universe, 2004) 95.

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Source: Fg2 / Wikimedia Commons

FIGURE 6.4: Spaces covered in tatami mats and articulated by shoji screens as seen at Takamatsu Castle are typical of traditional Japanese architecture.

In his book, The Hidden Order (1992), Yoshinobu Ashihara calls traditional Japanese dwelling design an “architecture of the floor.”7 In Western architecture, façade design has been significant since the Renaissance, and the wall defined space, provided fortification, and served as stability. In Japanese architecture, the wall instead takes on none of these qualities and is of little significance to defining space.

Ashihara attributes the insignificance of the “wall” within Japanese architecture to such factors as the primary building materials (wood) and construction style (post-and-beam) used in Japanese architecture until the Meiji period. Additionally, the lush vegetation and hot, humid climate drove the architectural features such as raised floors and walls that could be easily opened to the outdoors. As such, “it was the floor, rather than the wall, that became the focus of attention.”8 While the floors of homes were raised for the practical purpose of enabling ventilation, there is great social significance given to the elevation of the floor, as evidenced by the custom of removing one’s shoes, which indicates that “the interior of the home is of a higher spatial order than the exterior.”9 Likewise, and ethereal nature of the wall in the traditional Japanese home may be attributed to purpose of ventilation, but what may have been intended for practicality in fact has resulted in a great difference of how space is understood and defined. Shoji, the lightweight moveable screens that partition the interiors of traditional Japanese residences “gave the interior space a singularly fluid quality, and profoundly affected Japanese lifestyles and ways of thinking”10 (Fig 6.4). The insignificance of the wall and the resultant fluidity of space within the home has a direct analog in public space. In describing a traditional shopping street lined with machiya, Shelton quotes Botond Bognar (1985): “ ‘[T]here is no clear distinction between building and city, interior and exterior, private and public, turning such street architecture into the most ambiguous urban formation.’ ”11 7 Ashihara, The Hidden Order, 56.

8

Ibid., 13.

9

Ibid., 17.

10

Ibid., 13.

11

Botond Bognar, Contemporary Japanese Architecture (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1985), 71, quoted in Shelton, Learning from the Japanese City, 52.

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THE RELATIONSHIP OF SPACE, SELF, AND ARCHITECTURE Lastly, space in the bustling streets of Tokyo is subject to a different dynamic between self, space, and architecture (or the physical form), creating an entirely different experience within some public spaces. Shelton quotes Donald Richie (1987), a film and literary critic who has lived in Tokyo for much of his adult life, on this subject: “ ‘In Europe, one is part of the display—to see and be seen, to look and be looked at. The street is a stage. How different Japan…You, the walker, are not the actor.

Rather, you are an active spectator. The display is not you and the others about you.

The display is the street itself. The direction is not from you to it but from it to you.

Shops line the street, open up, spill out. Clothes on racks and sides of beef alike are shoved onto sidewalks. The fish shop’s scaly glitter is right there, still gasping. Baby televisions piled high blink at you eye to eye…on the Tokyo street, there is the raw profusion of consumption itself.’ ”12

In the Western street, the theater of urban life is wholly dependent on the actors, the participants, the citizens; it is people and activities that are the spectacle.

The architecture of the city supports this, providing a backdrop for street life. The physical continuity of this backdrop provides a stable reference point for activity.

Shelton points out that the physical setting is important for establishing unique memory of place,13 but this is as “active” as architecture becomes.

The Japanese street, on the other hand does not wholly invert the Western relationship of self and architecture, but shifts the focus of this relationship.

Whereas in the Western street, the drama happens between self and others in the street, in the Japanese street, the activities that make up urban life exist, but the drama occurs between self and architecture. It is the buildings presenting themselves and displaying their activity, ultimately competing for acknowledgment the “active spectator” (Fig. 6.5).

The drama is no longer just between self and others, such as when commercial transactions are made or when children play in the street, but is also between self and architecture. This drama occurs by means of storefronts and shops advertising themselves and hawking their offerings to the passerby. The engagement between self and architecture has happened through the physical opening of machiya to the street, and also through a tradition of big, colorful, illuminated signage that was noted as far back as the 1930s by Frank Lloyd Wright.14 Shelton goes on to discuss the “façade-as-billboard” concept, emphasizing that the relationship between self and architecture exists only insofar as the architecture has something to outwardly proclaim. He writes, 12

Donald Richie, A Lateral View: Essays on Contemporary Japan, revised edition, (Tokyo: The Japan Times, [1987] 1991), 52-53, quoted in Shelton, Learning from the Japanese City, 60.

13 Shelton, Learning from the Japanese City, 62-63.

14

Ibid., 54.

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Source: Karina Leung

FIGURE 6.5: The drama in public space occurs between the individual and the architecture that competes for the attention of the passerby through “facade-as-billboard” buildings, as seen in Shinjuku (above left) and in dramatic entrances and facades that spill onto the street, such as in Jingumae (above right).

“…[S]ince most signs are commercial, their intensity is, in part, a reflection of the flow of people beneath and between them. In other words, the vortices of the city can be measured in signs and people. The buildings, while essential, are visually irrelevant, unless themselves the sign.”15

The physical boundary of public space of a commercial street in Tokyo thus takes on a dependency to perform and provides feedback. To that end, the dialogue between self and the façade establish the extents of public space of the commercial street in Tokyo.

TOPOGRAPHY AND THE ORDERING OF SPACE IN TOKYO The form and the spatial experience of public space in Tokyo is influenced by the city’s notable topography and the impact of this topography on the city structure.

Jinnai Hidenobu (1995) describes the development of Tokyo (formerly Edo): “Edo showed all the features of a classic castle-town: its castle stood at the tip of the Musashino plateau; its commoner quarters lay to the east, in the alluvial lowlands; to the west, atop a diluvial plateau, stood the high city, or Yamanote, where the warrior houses were gathered. The Yamanote was by no means a uniformly flat hill.

The region’s many rivers had carved valleys into the hills, giving the land numerous folds…This complex intersection of plateaux and valleys provided the most decisive conditions for the way the city was constructed.”16 15

Ibid., 65.

16

Jinnai Hidenobu, Tokyo: A Spatial Anthropology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 11.

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A preference for complex, sloped terrain for the upper class daimyo residences, and the relegation of the commoners to low-lying valleys ultimately resulted in settlements that appear haphazard. In fact these developments simply had an ordering that followed the topography: “In developing its system of roads, the high city simply followed the organic movement of the mixed valley-and-hill topography…by carefully using every fold of the landscape as an element of design, it laid out an urban framework appropriate to each of its segments so as to create a mosaic pattern that was in harmony with the land itself.”17

Hidenobu describes this “anthropological structuring of space in Japan” as becoming highly legible when read by someone walking the streets today. What appears as haphazard development when viewed at the scale of the city in fact has its own order at the local scale. Along with this local ordering are centers and frames of reference that are unique to the local context and don’t necessarily relate back to the larger city. These multiple connected centers are unique to metropolitan Tokyo, creating a structure that Fumihiko Maki describes as “nebular.”18 Some public spaces in Tokyo also exhibit a similar design cues—the construction of an internal order, a willingness to follow topography and redefine reference points, rather than imposing an external order across the entire space.

Deep cultural differences between Western and Japanese culture­ —from language to historical development to values­—act on and are reflected in the articulation of space in Japan. The “areal” perception of space is the foundational difference between Western and Japanese understanding of space, establishing the context for related ideas, such as the articulation of space through the ground plane rather than through vertical boundaries. The experience of space in Tokyo is also different, acting as a function of different relationships between self to architecture, and through continually changing point of reference. These factors drive the following analysis of form, boundary quality, and spatial experience in the following case studies of two primary archetypes of public space in Tokyo— the train station and the shopping street.

17 Hidenobu, Tokyo, 18.e 18

Fumihiko Maki, “Fragmentation and Friction as Urban Threats: The Post-1956 City,” in Urban Design, ed. Alex Krieger and William S. Saunders (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 88-100.

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CASE STUDIES SHIBUYA STATION Shibuya Station is one of the busiest train stations in Japan. The station lies to the south west of central Tokyo, and provides access to three Tokyo Metro subway lines, two Tokyu rail lines, one Keio rail line, and two JR East lines, as well as the Yamanote Freight Line and Narita Express train. Both aboveand below-ground rail lines connecting regional, local, and perhaps international traffic (via the Narita Express) along with a bus station; and the pull of surrounding retail, offices, and cultural venues fuel the pedestrian traffic of Shibuya Crossing, the iconic intersection where all traffic stops to allow a dizzying spectacle of the scramble—hundreds of pedestrians crossing an array of streets during the allotted time period, sidewalks emptying, and refilling again for the “dance” to continue. The ordered chaos visible at the street level only hints at the warren of passageways below, adjacent, and above the Crossing (Fig. 6.6).

The organizational structure of Shibuya Station resembles that of Tokyo as a whole, i.e. non-existent. Shibuya Station, and other busy stations in Tokyo, could be viewed as a microcosm of the city, paralleling Tokyo in its development, organization, and pedestrian experience. Just as Tokyo’s early development was ordered by the area’s topography,19 Shibuya Station’s layout is driven by its physical context—the rail lines. Platforms for each rail line are akin to the multiple centers by which Tokyo is comprised and its “nebular” structure is understood.20

19 Hidenobu, Tokyo, 11.

20

Maki, “Fragmentation and Friction as Urban Threats,” 88-100.

Source: Karina Leung

FIGURE 6.6: Shibuya Crossing from the street level (above left) and from and elevated perspective (above right).

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Source: Tokyo Metro

FIG. 6.7: Axonometric diagram of Tokyo Metro platforms at Shibuya Station.

Like many central Tokyo rail stations that handle multiple rail lines, the form of the station itself is absolutely incomprehensible. The station is only digestible in the smallest of parts. The station extends from five subterranean floors to three floors above ground, each floor seems to have been conceived independently of the floors above and below. Even an axonometric diagram—which enables the simultaneous view of plan and section—of just the Tokyo Metro subway train platforms at Shibuya Station (Fig. 6.7) offers little clarification.

Without a single reference point, like the main concourse of Grand Central Terminal in New York, the space of the train station becomes only that which is experienced by the traveler. Each train platform, mezzanine, or passageway in the terminal exists without reference to a whole, relating only to the spaces that can be directly accessed. Without a steady reference point or a relationship to the whole, relationships between these spaces are relative—a traveler may know that the Ginza Line platform is above the Fukutoshin Line platform, but absolute positions are never known, nor are they necessary.

The physical boundary of Shibuya Station may be the threshold to any one of the dozens of station entrances, but this is not necessarily where the space of the station ends. The space of the station in fact ends when a traveler leaves the reference-less space of the station, finds his bearings, and can then relate back to the space of the city.

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CHUO DORI IN GINZA Chuo Dori is the main shopping street in Ginza, comparable to Fifth Avenue in New York. This broad avenue is both a major road and mainstream shopping mecca with flagship locations of mass-market retailers serving discount, upmarket, and luxury segments. Specialty shops and restaurants are also found along Chuo Dori. The single aim uniting these diverse retailers is consumption, and like the traditional machiya-lined shopping streets, retailers along Chuo Dori unabashedly present their offerings, competing for the attention and yen of passerby.

As a wide, flat, and relatively straight street, Chuo Dori is unique among many retail streets in Tokyo. Unlike streets that twist and turn, creating pockets of space, the space of Chuo Dori becomes monumental. The facades along Chuo Dori likewise are monumental. Large department stores anchor the central intersection where the Ginza station is located. These buildings have grand entryways that command attention. Brand names are proudly displayed at the tops of buildings, sometimes indicating the store below, sometimes just as a billboard, though it is often hard to tell where the sign begins and the façade ends, if there is any distinction between the two. The contents of buildings— whether branded boutiques within department stores, distinct tenants occupying different floors of a single building, goods available for purchase within, or the promise of an expertly curated environment within a restaurant or lounge —are proudly displayed either through large signage and displays that are legible from the street level. Lighting design also played significant role in façade displays, especially indicating the existence of upper-floor restaurants.

Perhaps following the popularity of designer buildings for boutique brands in Omotesando and Ginza, many large brands have created their own monumental facades that seem to extend beyond the retail floors. Richie’s description of the pedestrian as an “active spectator” rather than the spectator and the spectacle is most apt here. The drama is as much between the pedestrian engaging the spectacular quality of the buildings as it is about the drama of the see-and-beseen nature of shopping and fashion districts.

Source: Chris Fryer

Thor Equities

FIGURE 6.8: Facades-as-billboards along Chuo Dori (above left) versus street-oriented storefrongs along Fifth Avenue (above right).

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Chuo Dori

Fifth Avenue

PUBLIC SPACE

PUBLIC SPACE

Source: Karina Leung

FIGURE 6.9: Impact of facade on public space along Chuo Dori (above left) and Fifth Avenue (above right)

The storefronts of Fifth Avenue and their window displays could also arguably create the nature of drama created by architecture, but this occurs at neither the same scale nor within the same space as the drama within Chuo Dori.

Along Fifth Avenue, the drama between pedestrian and building typically occurs much closer to the street level, with facades generally not extending beyond the podium of a building, and anonymous upper story offices or apartments serving as the surrounding backdrop. Stores may be multiple floors, but the public realm is securely anchored to the street level and this is the location for all action. Along Chuo Dori, the street level is not the exclusive plane for action. The transparency of the facades, revealing multiple floors of public space, and the large signage extending up the full height of facades creates a multi-story public space that at times spills into the physical space of flanking buildings (Fig. 6.8).

CONCLUSION This definition of space through the horizontal plane rather than vertical planes has resulted in public spaces in Japan that have distinctly different structure, organization, and boundary qualities from typical Western public spaces.

Building façades, the vertical boundaries to the public space of the street, take on a “performative” role in Tokyo. Rather than acting to delimit public space, and impart character to the public space through formal qualities such as morphology, texture, etc., building facades in Tokyo actively engage pedestrians. The function of the facade, in defining interior and exterior, distinguishing public and private, is subordinate to the role of “facade-as-billboard.”

The public space of Tokyo is shaped by the natural landscape, resulting in seemingly haphazard spaces defined by internal order and local points of reference as opposed to being subjected to an external order that establishes a singular point of reference. This results in spaces that are experienced and understood in a different manner than public spaces in Western cities.

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CONCLUSION Exploring the edge conditions of public space in Japanese cities proved to be a framework from which a broad array of topics could be discussed, albeit briefly.

While initially proceeding from an observational research agenda in Japan, the report transformed into a document that operates on level of comparative analysis between Western design paradigms and the complex phenomena of Japanese urbanism.

The examination of Japanese streetscapes saw edge conditions on the street became a perspective from which U.S. ideas about street design, cycling and pedestrian use and safety, and street-level commercial activity could be analyzed. The analogous and differing elements between geographies were compared and critiqued, and lessons from the Japanese context informed our assumptions about design standards in Western cities in unexpected ways. The distinctions between the public and private private sphere, as well as the role of commercial activity in public spaces, proved to be an avenue through which social behavior in Japanese public spaces could be analyzed, as well as an opportunity for comparative reflection on how public space is organized, and for whom its potential uses are catered. Finally, cultural and religious meaning and symbolism have been understood to define physical space in Japanese cities and the changing meanings at the edges of these spaces ultimately have a great influence on informing social behavior, particularly around public spaces.

These observations and critical analyses should be taken as an opportunity to be built on and a potential guide for future research. While many edge conditions have been identified as potentially meaningful design features from which to begin exploration, ultimately much of our work found that a broader, interdisciplinary approach that seeks explanations of edge conditions beyond the physical realm was necessary. Thus, further research into the social, cultural, and symbolic meaning of edges and the conditions on both sides of a given edge can only improve and enrich the analysis of this report.

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DISCUSSION

SEARCHING FOR BOUNDARIES: SPATIAL ARTICULATION IN JAPAN Ashihara, Yoshinobu. The Hidden Order: Tokyo through the Twentieth Century. Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd., 1992.

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Richie, Donald. A Lateral View: Essays on Contemporary Japan, revised edition. Tokyo: The Japan Times, [1987] 1991. Quoted in Shelton, Barrie. Learning from the Japanese City: West Meets East in Urban Design. E & FN Spon, 2005.

Sacchi, Livio. Tokyo: City and Architecture. New York: Universe Publishing, 2004.

Shelton, Barrie. Learning from the Japanese City: West Meets East in Urban Design. E & FN Spon, 2005.

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SUMMER 2016

Formal and Social Boundaries of Public Space in Tokyo and Japan

Pratt Institute Programs for Sustainable Planning and Development PLAN 782A - Tokyo Planning and Urbanism Professor Jonathan Martin, Ph.D. AICP