Tokyo and the end of architecture (an informal tale about Tokyo)

A visiting architect-friend of mine described Tokyo colorfully as “an urban disaster with shit-piled-upon-shit”. Seeing my slightly annoyed face, he thoughtfully added “but it is fascinating shit”. This is a stereotypical reaction I have heard many times over, and not only from visitors. The Japanese themselves, architects as well as non-architects mutter an apologetic reference to European cities when we talk about Tokyo. Kenzo Tange once said that Tokyo has had many times over the chance to rebuild itself: after the Great Earthquake of 1923 or after the World War Ⅱ bombings, but according to Tange the rebuilding from an urban design's point of view always failed. Did Tokyo, the world's largest urban entity, really fail?

On the surface it is true, translating the city through aesthetic, cultural, technological or consumer eyes the conclusions are often pathetically simplistic postcard stories: “Darling, the city is a chaos inducing headache, you get hopelessly lost as neither the streets nor avenues have names but the transportation system is absolutely divine and it is it's a shopping and Michelin star-loaded food heaven”.

From this point of view Tokyo's urban design, or the complete lack of it, seems to be a practical joke, or a deliberate attempt to upset Prince Charles. But as the great American anthropologist Ruth Benedict has pointed out: “No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking”. Most people who visit Tokyo come heavily biased, and yes, Tokyo is an easy target.

In other more controlled urban environments such as for example Paris we can see a city that is all construction and the aesthetics of construction. In Tokyo on the contrary the emphasis is not construction, construction is merely a technical by-product, (albeit one of the highest technical standards), no, the focus in Tokyo is on activities and then mainly consumer activities and entertainment. I've have called this shift in space utilization Transitional Space*.

Today's emphasis on activities creates spaces that reinforce the consumeristic activities, and architecture is becoming nothing more than a vessel to contain these activities. It are the activities and the consumption they promote that today are the real drivers of architecture. This is not a purely functional architecture as activities change the role of architecture dramatically, architecture becomes a cathedral for consumption.

So when you visit Tokyo try to remember that what you see is not architecture nor urban design anymore but what you really see are consuming forces at work. Forces that render architecture invisible, absorbing it in nothing more (nor less) than signage for interior spaces of consumption. And then, when you go back to your own city you will see, when you look closely, the same mini versions of Tokyo sprouting up in malls, hypermarkets, casinos, airports and hotels. And then you know what fascinating shit Tokyo really is.

* Martin van der Linden in eBusiness and Workplace redesign, Paul Jackson ed. al, Routledge, London, 2002