Shameless Tokyo

Made in Tokyo was an incredible read that caused a major riff in my mind. Throughout my architectural education, I feel like it was engraved to associate Japanese architecture with intention and precision. The greats like Tadao Ando and Kengo Kuma are masters in craft and detail so I guess I assumed Tokyo was 9 million people that desired the highest tech and well-crafted spaces in the planet. Instead, this guide introduces the shameless spatial compositions that are custom to the citizens of Tokyo and their expectations of what built space should be.

A collaged city layered with unusual spaces and relationships, Tokyo is a city “where cultural interest is low, [and] interest in practical issues is high”. At first this sounds like a nightmare to any architect or creative person in general but learning about the emphasis that this culture places on the “second role” is what is so intriguing. From baseball batting cages next to spaghetti shops to a driving school on top of a double story supermarket, spatial relationships and closed envelopes are challenged by Tokyo in sharp contrast to the rest of the world. The project from the guide that most stood out to me was the “Electric Passage” department store built into the elevated expressway. A combination so uniquely cool and yet so typical it seems for the passing people in the space. A cultural acceptance that is anything but similar to the mindset of an outsider.

It is hard to not think about our first semester COTE 10 project and think about the reactions we and external reviewers had about the sites situated underneath an existing highway infrastructure. It feels a bit silly that we constantly heard how it was either the most sustainable design a person has heard or the most ridiculous waste of time for a site nobody would ever use. Yet little shameless Tokyo 6,000 miles away has possibly come up with the most sustainable and community centric design of us all. They successfully utilized an existing expressway infrastructure that is needed for the structure of the department store, but also the department store is a necessity for the expressway to justify its presence in a heavy commercial area. A beautiful relationship between ugly architecture, uglier engineering, and awkward public spaces so why is it just so damn beautiful?! It is because Tokyo may not design to the community standards that we as westerners envision, but it fits their practical emphasis on engineering and multi-use design that makes this and so many other examples, successful.