Carola Hein

Shaping Tokyo: Land Development and Planning Practice in the Early Modern Japanese Metropolis

From the mid-nineteenth century, Japanese elites experimented with foreign planning concepts and transformed their cities to respond to the demands of modernization. Even though they faced similar situations, knew about established European techniques, and had large open spaces available, they established planning practices that were different from those of their foreign counterparts, building on the country’s own urban history and form, particularities in landownership, development needs, urban planning techniques, and design preferences. This article highlights, first, key issues of landownership, urban form, and urban development in the Edo period (1603—1867) and provides an overview of the urban transformation of Tokyo concentrating on the era from the early Meiji period (1860s) to the reconstruction after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. It then examines the elements set up in the overview more closely through the study of three areas of Tokyo between the 1860s and the 1920s. The article highlights the elite’s pragmatic approach to urban transformation and underlines the importance of land readjustment, a planning technique characterized by a reduction in lot sizes to create public land and to widen and straighten out streets, plots, and blocks. Examined are the transformation of the Ginza townsmen district (with a close look at the Yamashita-chô area), the government-led construction to the east of the palace (notably the Marunouchi area) starting in the 1880s, and the Kanda Misaki-chô area, a smaller daimyo district that had been cleared of all construction. In conclusion, this article argues that Japanese planners developed a practice that departed from European and American design principles but one that was and continues to be appropriate for Japanese needs and one that might even offer lessons to foreign cities and planners.

The exchange of planning ideas from Europe to the USA after the Second World War: introductory thoughts and a call for further research

The transnational exchange of planning ideas after the Second World War was multi-directional. As this special issue demonstrates, while American concepts spread globally there was also a steady transfer of European ideas to the USA. European émigrés in the USA and American professionals explored the reconstruction of European downtowns, particularly in Northern Europe. This special issue builds on a growing interest in transnational planning history, including a desire to develop research and writing methods. The current issue contains an overview of secondary literature (Wakeman), a careful investigation of post-war professional transatlantic dialogue (Joch), research on the International Federation for Housing and Planning conference held in The Hague in 1958 (Wagner), and an examination of the term and concept of urban design throughout the Anglophone world (Orillard). The introduction also proposes further directions for research that consciously engages with changing global contexts, and studies their impact on planning beyond physical, theoretical, temporal or other boundaries, for example, discussing planners and plans that crossed the schism of the Cold War. It also calls for global integration of research tools and collaboration among researchers in the field.

Machi: Neighborhood and Small Town—The Foundation for Urban Transformation in Japan

The term machi, signifying both neighborhood and small town, is a key element for understanding Japanese urban form and city planning. After tracing the origins of the term, this article explores t...The term machi, signifying both neighborhood and small town, is a key element for understanding Japanese urban form and city planning. After tracing the origins of the term, this article explores the historic and contemporary significance of the concept and its particular spatial and socioeconomic forms. The article then argues that the concept of machi influenced the ways in which Japanese planners picked up foreign concepts through the nineteenth and particularly the twentieth century, absorbing some ideas and rejecting others. Building on their perception of the city as composed of urban units that allowed for planning in patchwork patterns, leading Japanese planners carefully selected models—independently of international appreciation—making, for example, the book The New Town by the German planner Gottfried Feder a standard reference. The article concludes by arguing that foreign observers must understand the concept of machi to comprehend contemporary Japanese neighborhoods, city life, and urban forms.

Choosing a site for the capital of Europe

The European Union has achieved internal cohesion and international economic recognition, but economics alone has not yet led to a united Europe. Although this cohesiveness strongly influence regions and cities, and cities have started to refer to their European background, the member nations continue to hold regional and urban planning power. Forced to take unanimous decisions, the European Council of Ministers maintained the doctrine of a unique capital for 40 years, provoking numerous urban and architectural visions while simultaneously accepting the existence of three provisional headquarters, Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. The host nations, Belgium, France and Luxembourg meanwhile oriented these cities to both European economic considerations and local needs.This article analyzes the logic that led to decentralization of the capital city functions, the reasons why cities were interested in hosting the European Communities, what individual cities and nations suggested and why the most obvious solutions were not adopted. The Maastricht Treaty, the ongoing strengthening of European and regional institutions, and the choice of the provisional headquarters as definite capitals in 1992 gives cause for hope that concepts based on European and regional necessities beyond the nation-state will now be elaborated. A European network of cities and regions including the three political capitals of Europe, as revealed by their infrastructures and buildings, seems to be the best expression of the meaning of European unity.

Roppongi Crossing: The Demise of a Tokyo Nightclub District and the Reshaping of a Global City. Roman Cybriwsky

Roppongi—anyone somewhat familiar with Tokyo will recognize the name as that of a famous entertainment district. From the 1960s to the 2000s, Roppongi referred to a nightlight district with numerous discotheques and bars, a place where foreigners mingled with rich, young, internationally minded Japanese, located in proximity of the central government district, international headquarters, several United States military facilities, and the American embassy. Since the mid-2000s this image has come to change, as the Japanese construction state, a powerful coalition of the public and private sectors has inserted new functions and established a new image for the district as an upscale shopping and business center. The Roppongi Hills complex and its Mori Tower, which include an Art Museum, cinema, restaurants, and shops as well as office spaces for major companies and luxury apartments (opened in 2003), and the Tokyo-Midtown development of the Mitsui group (2007) initiated this transformation. The title of Cybriwsky’s new book “Roppongi Crossing” refers to the busy intersection at the heart of the district. As a traditional meeting point between Japanese and foreigners, it embodies the evolving relationship between Japan and the rest of the world. In his study of Roppongi, Cybriwsky builds on his 1998 book “Tokyo: The Shogun’s City at the Twenty-First Century”. Rather than once again taking on the city as a whole, Cybriwsky uses Roppongi, understood as the spearhead of current policy, to understand where Tokyo and Japan are moving. The choice of Roppongi as the object of this study, however, was not as straightforward as it may seem. Cybriwsky was not drawn to the place through its function as an entertainment area, instead, as he points out in the preface (p. xv, xvi), the research for this book occurred during his third long-term stay in Tokyo, when he happened to be given an apartment in its proximity. It is this almost accidental encounter that raised Cybriwsky’s intellectual curiosities, kept him engaged with the topic for almost a decade, and finally brought us this vivid and intriguing book. Cybriwsky uses the introductory chapter entitled “Roppongi and the New Tokyo” to carefully outline his methodology and the difficulties and potential dangers of doing research in Roppongi, a place where the Japanese gangsters (Yakuza) are a major force, where the police is very present and where anti-foreigner attitudes exist (p. 14ff). Readers learn about his personal relationship to the area and the ways in which his particular age, background, and interests intersected with the research and the people who he associated with and who come from various walks of life, of different ethnicities, and ages. As difficult as research into the shady sides of Roppongi was, the neat facades of New Roppongi and the public face of its developers as presented in the available glamorous advertising and publicity documents were just as complicated to fully assess (p. 21, 212). The resulting book thus invites the reader to view Roppongi through his eyes, the lens of an academic working on a difficult and quickly transforming district with a multitude of diverse stakeholders, reflecting the author’s fascination and personal impressions. As

Review Essay: National Traditions and Foreign Influences in the Architecture and Urban Form of China and Japan

JEFFREY E. HANES, The City as Subject: Seki Hajime and the Reinvention of Modern Osaka. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, pp. xii, 348, bibliography, index,

European Spatial Development, the Polycentric EU Capital, and Eastern Enlargement

45 cloth. JONATHAN M. REYNOLDS, Maekawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist Architecture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, pp. xviii, 318, bibliography, index,

Spaces of Identity in East European Cities

60 cloth. JEFFREY W. CODY, Building in China: Henry K. Murphy’s “Adaptive Architecture” 1914-1935. Seattle: University of Washington Press/Chinese University Press, 2001, pp. xxiv, 264, bibliography, index,

Ashes and Granite: Destruction and Reconstruction in the Spanish Civil War and Its Aftermath. By Olivia Muñoz-Rojas. The Cañada Blanch/Sussex Academic Studies on Contemporary Spain. Edited by Paul Preston.Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, in association with the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies, 2011. Pp. xxvi+224. £65.00.

60 cloth. GIDEON S. GOLANY, Urban Design Ethics in Ancient China. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 2001, pp. xvi, 312, bibliography, index,

The City as Subject: Seki Hajime and the Reinvention of Modern Osaka. By Jeffrey E. Hanes. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002. xii, 348 pp.

119.95.