Tokyo: City and Architecture: +special price+ - Softcover

Livio Sacchi; Franco Purini

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8884919908 ISBN 13: 9788884919908

Publisher: Skira Editore, 2005

Synopsis

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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: Skira Editore
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 8884919908
• ISBN 13: 9788884919908
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 252