Tokyo: City And Architecture - Softcover

Sachi, Livio

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0789312123 ISBN 13: 9780789312129

Publisher: Universe Pub, 2005

Synopsis

Tokyo is one of the largest and most complex cities in the world and represents an intriguing proving ground for new ideas on architecture and urbanism. Working in Tokyo means working in the future, and often two sets of rules seem to apply to projects in Tokyo-on the one hand the city's growth is as protean as that of LA or Mexico City, yet this growth is channeled by Japan's rigid adherence to norms and rules and Japanese architecture's embrace of the theoretical and new. This book presents Tokyo as seen through its growth and design from the 19th century onward with a special focus on highlighting the deep roots of contemporary trends in Tokyo architecture.

About this title

Synopsis:

Tokyo is one of the largest and most complex cities in the world and represents an intriguing proving ground for new ideas on architecture and urbanism. Despite the widespread globalization process, its image is quite different from any other European, American or otherwise Asian megalopolis. The visual and cultural shock is intense, as the city appears immense, incontrollable, indecipherable, incommunicable, and chaotic. Tokyo is an extraordinary capital of contemporary architecture and, at the same time, an exceptional urban phenomenon. Concealed by an apparently abstract debate lies a fundamental question that the book attempts to investigate: is this the last degeneration of the Western city or has Tokyo, with its deep-rooted historical diversity and a defined cultural autonomy, been substantially unaffected by the strong hybridization process with the West?

Moreover, are we fascinated by these aspects or rather by its being/appearing just as the city that - though not belonging to the Western tradition - has accepted more than any other metropolis the millenary challenge, projecting itself forward with its meteoric transformations, with an energy, recklessness and boldness achievable only by a place that has never belonged to the Western tradition, up to the point of substantiating a real and new symbolic form in 20th century urban phenomenology? This book presents Tokyo as seen through its growth and design from the late 19th century onward with a special focus on highlighting the deep roots of contemporary trends in Tokyo architecture.

About this edition

• Publisher: Universe Pub
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0789312123
• ISBN 13: 9780789312129
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 249
• Editor: Mercuri Franco