Any architecture tour of Tokyo should devote time to it's urban structure. Its loose hierarchy of urban spaces filled with scale contrasts and mixed uses is part of what visitors find stimulating and inscrutable at the same time.

The dense fabric of the city gives the impression of an incomplete collection of towns punctuated by the emergence of local centers. It is a kind of urban model that is resilient and adaptable to change.

An extensive list of reasons is usually given to explain the fragmentary nature of Tokyo’s urban structure. From old settlement patterns to natural disasters, from war devastation to land speculation, the list of possible explanations is always partial.

One interesting trait is the coexistence of old and new that is behind the character of the city. For a visitor would be easy to notice the contrast between contemporary and traditional buildings, the former ones being a minor presence. However, it would be harder to recognise how much of the past urban structures still influence modern cityscape and its present development. New patterns are added constantly without necessarily displacing former ones.

For example, land holding arrangements from the time of Edo can be traced on the grid block areas of the city centre like Nihonbashi. Former Daimyo estates are now parks or university campuses. Rivers and waterways used as trade arteries in the past became templates for expressways and train lines routes. In the suburbs, the layout of many housing developments trace the patterns of earlier agricultural land.

Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples still remain witness to the evolution of cityscape. This type of buildings is apart from the fluctuation of urban development. Religious buildings become gates to the past and their grounds still fulfill a role as temporary public spaces.

From time to time, the patchwork quality of the city is complemented by the emergence of planned areas. Case in point, the area of Denenchofu in the south of Tokyo. Planned following the idea of the Garden City at the beginning of last century, owed its initial success to the displacement of city center dwellers affected by the Kanto earthquake in 1923.

Present-day urban interventions like Hillside Terrace in Daikanyama or Roppongi Hills have taken years consolidating single plots into large sites. Others like Tokyo Midtown and Omotesando Hills were developed on areas that previously held government facilities and collective housing respectively. These projects emerge as small exceptions amidst a fragmented urban fabric.

Certainly, the overlapping of urban patterns in Tokyo is not at all recent, however postwar city planning aimed for economic growth accelerated the expansion of the city.
This intensified the change of rural areas into suburban ones and increased the population density in the city until the early 1990s.

Today, issues like demographic change and economic stagnation reduce the need for new urban development. Thus the irregular process that has characterised the growth of Tokyo will slow down. This might bring to the front relegated issues like the upgrade of inner city areas, the consolidation of suburbs and the improvement of urban living conditions.

It remains to be seen what aspects of the present Tokyo cityscape will be carried over into this new phase, it's going to be interesting to see how it will face the severe economic and environmental circumstances that lie ahead, though. As the urban fabric continues to merge aspects of the past and future Tokyo will remain a constant source of reflection.

Juan Ordonez
Architect

Community Housing Ltd.