Tokyo’s public space and contemporary Japanese architecture

摘要

Public space, as a linkage between individuals forming thecollective life and buildings creating continuous urbanlandscape, has both the social and spatial significance in theurban environment. Public space’ concept, definition, andphysical form changes according to different contexts andperiods. Our contemporary society asks demand for new publicspace design. The city challenges the original concept of publicspace in the new era. Due to the centuries’ urbanization, theresultant extreme urban condition (high density/skyrocketingland price/influx of population from other surroundingprefectures) of Tokyo in Japan, stimulate an emergent type ofpublic space which is associated with the design ofcontemporary Japanese architecture. One the one hand, theabove-mentioned public space embedded in architecture isessential in forming Tokyo’s unique urban morphology. On theother hand, it is closely bonded with the citizen’s daily life andshows itself an alternative public space/realm to the traditionaltype. Surprisingly, this prevalent form of public space has notbeen well studied in Western literature, neither mentioned withdetailed analysis (Caballero and Tsukamoto, 2006) norsystematically examined (Radović and Boontharm, 2012) inprevious research of Japanese cities. The significance of thisresearch is to reveal the unique image of contemporary publicspace in today’s city of Tokyo. It will also explore and unfoldcitizen’s attitudes towards the concept and attributes of “publicspace†and “publicness†in today’s society. The result of thisresearch will help to improve the quality of citizens’ public lifeand to regenerate urban space by actively engaging witharchitectural design practices in Tokyo for the future.