Tokyo: A Spatial Anthropology [Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520354906

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Tokyo

Tokyo A Spatial Anthropology

Jinnai Hidenobu Translated by

Kimiko Nishimura

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley / Los Angeles / London

Tokyo: A Spatial Anthropology is a translation of Tokyo no kükanjtnruijjakuy originally published in Tokyo in 1985 by Chikuma Shobö. The publisher gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the Suntory Foundation in support of the publication of this book.

This book is a print-on-demand volume. It is manufactured using toner in place of ink. Type and images may be less sharp than the same material seen in traditionally printed University of California Press editions.

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 1995 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jinnai, Hidenobu, 19+7[Tokyo no kukan jinruigaku. English] Tokyo, a spatial anthropology / by Jinnai Hidenobu ; translated by Kimiko Nishimura. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-520-07135-2 1. City planning—Japan—Tokyo—History. 2. Open spacesJapan — Tokyo—Planning — History. 3. Tokyo (Japan) — Social conditions. 4. Urban anthropology. I. Title. HT395.J33T62513 1995 307.1'2i6'o952i35—dc20 95-6050 CIP Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). ©

Contents

FOREWORD

vii

PREFACE

ix

INTRODUCTION

I

1 The High City: Surface and Depths 2 The Cosmology of a City of Water 3

The Rhetoric of the Modern City 4

Modernism and Its Urban Forms

7

66

119

171

AFTERWORD

217

NOTES

221

INDEX

225

v

Foreword

Richard Bender Dean Emeritus and Professor of Architecture University of California, Berkeley

It is a pleasure to be able to introduce this book and, through it, the work of Jinnai Hidenobu to an English-speaking audience. Tokyo: A Spatial Anthropology is part of a body of work that is as valuable for its insights and methods of analysis as it is for its description of the form of today's Tokyo and its roots in the land, culture, and traditions of Edo. With his conviction that we come to know a city by walking, Jinnai forms a bridge between the traditional methods of the planners of Edo and those of modern city planners like Professor Allan Jacobs, with his works on "observing cities" and "great streets": walking; feeling the stones; reading a city with one's feet. But Professor Jinnai adds another dimension. As he walks the crowded streets (and rows his small boat on the remaining waterways) of modern Tokyo, he guides himself with maps of Edo—seeing the rice fields, shopping streets, housing clusters, and temple complexes of Edo through the palimpsest of four centuries — and he opens our minds to some remarkable understandings. Though almost no buildings more than one hundred years old remain in today's Tokyo, patterns of development set centuries ago convii

viii

FOREWORD

tinue to shape the modern city. Streets, block sizes, building orientation, and the layout and character of neighborhoods were formed by the shape of the land, the flow of rivers, the cultures of wet rice and wood construction, and the social structure and religious practices that stratified the lives of the daimyo, the samurai, and the shop-keeper. A city takes its form over time. Its basic framework spans many eras and architectures. Jinnai helps us follow this evolution as the neighborhoods of the daimyo evolve into the sites of modern hotels, parks, and universities and the houses of the samurai become those of today's "salaryman." Too often, in recent years, urban design has been seen and practiced as "big architecture," with a focus on the design of complex buildings and building complexes. But cities are given form by many forces and over time. It is nature and the pattern of streets, public places, and land ownership and development that shape and animate the lives of cities. It is time we learned more about them: how they have come to us and how to design, redesign, and support their place in urban living. Professor Jinnai's work helps us to focus on these elements of a city rather than on individual buildings and the more visible infrastructure. This book has much to offer all of us who are concerned with cities. It will whet your appetite and open your eyes on your own walks through neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, Soho, and St-Germain-des-Pres as well as Azabu, Mita, and Azakusa.

Preface

Deciphering the massive and complex metropolis of Tokyo as a "text" requires more than ordinary methods. But if we persevere in our reading, attacking the text chapter by chapter, no other city is as rewarding. With its intricate combination of lineages —first, the double spatial lineage of low city and high city, waterside and hillside; second, the temporal lineage of pre-Edo, Edo, Age of Civilization and Enlightenment, modernism, and the postwar era of rapid growth—Tokyo presents an appearance and tone unique to itself. If we can read Tokyo, no other city in Japan, or in the world, can possibly faze us. It has been eight years since I first made the "text that is Tokyo" as the object of my research. Returning from studies in Italy and taking a position as a part-time lecturer at Hosei University, I did not hesitate to choose Tokyo for my own and my students' fieldwork. This is how the independent seminar called the Group for the Study of Tokyo and Its Neighborhoods (Tokyo no Machi Kenkyukai) came into existence. We did not begin with any wild ideas of tackling the entire city of Tokyo. Our surveys began far less pretentiously: we simply hoisted a flag and began walking around the city. Before long, we learned of areas such as Shitaya and Negishi (Taito Ward), which had been spared destruction during both the earthquake and the war and thus preserved their neighborhood setting and low-city social relations. Moved and touched by what we discovered, we set about surveying the areas. We applied the method, more or less intact, that I had used in Venice—namely, of analyzing dwellings typologically in their own context and interpreting the structure of each area's living ix

x

PREFACE

spaces. (I discuss this method in Tokyo no machi o yomu [Reading the neighborhoods of Tokyo], published by Sagami Shobo). But it was obvious that, if we allowed ourselves to become fixated on one area of the "traditional" and "romantic" low city, we would never be able to get hold of the reality of Tokyo as a city. Consequently, we completely «conceptualized our approach, turning our attention to the "high city" that sustains modern Tokyo. We decided to survey the entire area inside the Yamanote loop line. Our scope was absurdly broad. Nevertheless, every Sunday, armed with an old or reconstructed map of Edo, my students and I began a series of "events," consisting of walks around the city. Feeling each fold of the landscape beneath our feet as we walked, we tried to experience the city's space physically as it had been lived by people in and through their history. The impassioned stories we heard from elderly residents throughout the city helped to give substance to our image of the densely meaningful "places" we surveyed. More than once I was astonished at the unexpected fascination of conducting fieldwork in Tokyo. My greatest concern was not so much an exhaustive investigation of historical facts as an explanation from a historical standpoint of how the city of Tokyo got to be the way it is. I focused on the question of how people living in Tokyo since the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment of the 1870s experienced the alien culture of the West and how they understood it as they created their city. Gradually, my interest widened from the Meiji (1868-1912) to the Taisho (19x2-26) and the early Showa (1912-92) periods. I found myself captivated by the urban forms associated with the modernism that blossomed—albeit briefly—in those years. I set about interpreting the urban space of that time, superimposing on it the image of today's new age of the city. But as I surveyed the high city and fell ever more deeply under the spell of modernism, I began to worry that I would lose sight of the basic structure of Japanese cities, one that I had intuitively grasped long ago. I realized that the time had come to rediscover the low-city spaces nurtured by Edo-Tokyo, but from a fresh perspective. I had been looking for some way to link my favorite themes: the "watery capital" of Venice and the city of Tokyo. The discovery that low-city Edo had also been a world-class city built on water was an unexpected breakthrough. At the invitation of a friend who had been raised in the low city, I set out from Tsukudajima in a boat. The dynamic spatial experience of this tour of Tokyo's waterside opened my eyes to the reading of Tokyo at a whole new level. This experience also enabled me to appreciate for the first time Hi-

PREFACE

xi

guchi Tadahiko's unique discussion of the perspectives of the hillside and the waterside. Gradually it became clear to me that even more than in Venice, in Edo-Tokyo water plays a fundamental role in giving structure to the city. It also became clear that, in order to add depth to my argument, I must not limit my conception of urban living space to the everyday, or profane, world; instead, I had to move into the nonquotidian world, the realm of the sacred. I had carried out a number of surveys up to that point and felt that I had a good grasp of the high city. Now I began to think that I ought to look at the whole city from this new perspective. Here I found Maki Fumihiko's "idea of the interior" richly suggestive. A number of years before, a friend had asked, "How much can you read of a city using your method?" The question had never left my mind. Now, finally, I felt that I had gotten hold of the clue that would bring me close to the structure and meaning that lies at Tokyo's depths. My approach to Tokyo, which I arrived at through this process of trial and error, deviates at many points from the conventional methods of architectural history that I had used in the past. The method I had applied in my studies of Italian cities was also insufficient, at least by itself. The principles underlying the architecture and overall organization of European cities can be articulated rather explicitly. Not so in the case of Japan. Here, the essence remains invisible if the basic spatial structure, with its organic ties to nature and the universe, is not understood. For this reason, I ventured to include the odd-sounding phrase "A Spatial Anthropology" in my tide. I believe that my method—placing oneself within the urban space of contemporary Tokyo, replete with the meanings and memories that are the accumulation of human activities; conducting surveys of the field; and applying a comparative perspective to elucidate the special structure of the city—does in fact constitute an anthropological approach. Thus the title expresses my intention to grasp Tokyo from a new perspective. In completing this work, I have become indebted to a great many people. They include, first, my fellow members of the Tokyo no Machi Kenkyukai at Hosei University. The very demanding work of conducting research into Tokyo cannot possibly be done by a single person. Were it not for the our pleasurable joint undertaking, this work could never have been completed. In particular, I owe heartfelt thanks to Itakura Fumio, Inaba Yoshiko, and Muneta Yoshifumi. I have also had the opportunity to participate in a number of interdisciplinary research groups and have received stimulating comments from

xii

PREFACE

specialists in a variety of fields. This was a valuable experience, which both broadened the framework of my research and gave it greater depth. In particular, I have been privileged to participate in a group that studies Tokyo's cityscape as culture (Tokyo no Bunka Toshite no Toshi Keikan; in existence since 1979) along with scholars such as Ogi Shinzo, Haga Torn, Takashina Shuji, and Higuchi Tadahiko—all at the front rank of their field. At each meeting, we enjoy a talk by a talented guest lecturer, followed by a lively discussion. From these I have unreservedly taken a wealth of ideas about the ways to read Edo-Tokyo. The Study Group in Residential History (Kyojushi Kenkyukai), led by my adviser, Inagaki Eizo of the Architectural History Research Institute at the University of Tokyo, has greatly stimulated my thinking about methodology in urban and social history, a recent topic of vigorous debate in Japan. I have been fortunate to participate in two other groups: first, over the past year, the joint study group led by Tsukamoto Manabu of the National Museum of History and Ethnography on aspects of Edo as an early modern city; and second, the Association of the Road (Michi no Kai), a study group led by Kuramochi Fumiya and Seki Kazutoshi, whose members (all roughly of the same age) are active in areas such as cultural anthropology and ethnography. Here I have been able to come into direct contact with research methods in specialized fields dealing with the city. My deep thanks to the members of all these groups who have assisted me in my work. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the services of Izaki Masatoshi of Chikuma Shobo, who was a source of valuable advice and encouragement over the entire course of this project. March 14,1985

Introduction

There is something I always have to explain to foreign visitors in Tokyo. "Tokyo," I find myself saying, "is an anomaly among the capital cities of the world. You see, it's become difficult here to find a house that's even a century old." Twice, most of Tokyo was reduced to smoldering ruins, once during the earthquake of 1923, and once again during the Pacific War. Then wholesale demolition and reconstruction followed during the postwar period of rapid growth. The Tokyo cityscape has completely changed. We are now in an unusual position—the only way we can see the Tokyo of the Meiji period (1868-1912), which was built by ravenously adopting Western culture, is in pictures and photographs. Tokyo is a great metropolis that seems to have lost the face of its own past. By contrast, not long ago I made my first visit to the United States and was astonished by what I saw. New York, which I had always taken to be at the vanguard of contemporary civilization — and in a sense a model city for Tokyo — is in fact made up of old buildings dating from the latter half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. Among them, it is the ponderous skyscrapers of the 1920s and 1930s that rise to form the skyline and give the city its character. The Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building especially are known for their art deco style. In addition to being truly elegant works of architecture, their nighttime lighting is spectacular, and even now they hold pride of place as symbols of the city. Not to be outdone, today's ultramodern skyscrapers compete among themselves to be the most unusual in design and to stand out against the older masterpieces. Walking along 1

2

INTRODUCTION

the blocks of stylish apartment houses near Central Park and along the graceful residential areas of Greenwich Village, I found myself wondering whether I was really in New York. It made a powerful impression on me that the same New York that sends out the latest in contemporary culture to the world should also be a chic, old city. Is Tokyo, where buildings from the 1920s and 1930s have been steadily torn down and very few old buildings remain, something of a bore compared to New York? Not necessarily. Aside from one section, which was the center of the early city, most of Manhattan is magnificently controlled by a grid pattern planned and laid out during the first half of the nineteenth century. A combination of great north-south avenues and east-west streets, the city is constructed logically. It is simple and convenient to find any building you might be looking for. In fact, it is so simple that after a few days of walking around town, one can even get a little bored. Now look at Tokyo. From the standpoint of modern rationalism, with its reverence for clarity, it is truly difficult to form an overall picture of Tokyo's urban space. Increasingly, there are few tasteful old buildings, and the streets and neighborhoods are losing their character. And yet, walking the streets of the city, one is treated to repeated changes in the cityscape. There is unexpected variety in the topography, with the high city's hills and cliffs, winding roads, shrine groves, and large, verdant estates; and the low city's canals and bridges, alleyways and storefront planter pots, and crowded entertainment centers. For the walker in Tokyo, the unexpected is always waiting. Tokyo may not have the old buildings of New York, but each place evokes a distinctive atmosphere nurtured over a long history: this makes Tokyo what it is. Recendy, we have also begun to encounter marvelous works of architecture, overflowing with the kind of contemporary sensibility that uses the environmental context to heighten the appeal of the site as a whole. In the rush of our daily lives, however, and accustomed as we are to moving about by subway and automobile, we have few chances to take a leisurely walk around the city. As a result, we are growing insensitive to the appeal of such places. Under these circumstances, do we simply give up, lamenting that with few buildings left from a century ago, Tokyo has lost the face of its past, its identity? No! To do so would be premature. Instead, we should see that in Tokyo a rich variety of physical locations, along with the urban structure that has filled them since the Edo—or Tokugawa — period (1600-1867), forms the essential framework of today's city. This framework, together with the interweaving of old and new elements

INTRODUCTION

3

that make up the contents of the city, has produced an urban space that is without parallel in the world. One way to take a fresh look at the familiar city of Tokyo is to guide foreign visitors on a walking tour. I myself have a large number of acquaintances from Italy, where the urban culture is based on stone construction. They have a lively curiosity about Japanese cities and are richly receptive to what they see. As we walk about the city, I listen to their impressions, noting what aspects of Japanese urban space appear new to them, and try to answer their perceptive questions. As I do, I find that I, the guide, am given an opportunity to appreciate features of Japanese cities that I usually overlook. Once, after a number of years of such experiences, I found myself facing an audience of American university students of architecture and landscaping and delivering a series of slide-illustrated lectures (in English, no less) on the emergence of Tokyo. Although I specialize in architectural and urban history, I could not see much value in explaining history as such to a foreign audience. Instead, I decided to incorporate a historical approach into my "reading" of the distinctive features of contemporary Tokyo that had emerged as a result of its development. I entided my lectures "The Rhetoric of Tokyo's Urban Space," thinking that it might appear novel to my foreign audience, and I made an effort to unlock the secrets of the city's urban space for them. Paying attention to such features of the high and low cities as topography, roads, and land use, I showed that there were continuities from the city of Edo to be found in each, and that the structure of the city worked out during the Edo period serves as the basic stratum of contemporary Tokyo. I then addressed a wide range of issues, including the sense of scale, both in the city and in its architecture; the relations between nature and the city, especially the spatial configuration of the waterside; the use of axes and symmetry within the city; the existence of landmarks; the siting of buildings on lots; and finally, the ways that Japanese and Western elements are combined at various levels, from architectural design to urban space. I was hoping to clarify the logic found in the Japanese style of composing space. This meant that I was interpreting the most quotidian urban space that encompasses us — the sort of interpretation that occurs only when we try to make something comprehensible to a foreign audience. As I talked, it came home to me that once we separate early modern Edo from modern Tokyo, we become totally incapable of grasping the distinctive features of today's Tokyo; Tokyo's characteristic form has to be regarded as the end product of a mixture of elements from both periods.

4

INTRODUCTION

We need a vantage point that acknowledges the interpénétration of the early modern and the modern in the formation of Edo-Tokyo and links the two periods in a single coherent vision. The notion of "EdoTokyo Studies" advocated recendy by Ogi Shinzô1 counters the tendency to treat the cities as separate entities by proposing that we cut across time and take a three-dimensional view. This is a praiseworthy notion indeed. This attitude is especially important for ourfield,because it treats the formation of the city as continuous. Even with the advent of a new era, it is inconceivable that a soundly built city would use a single set of plans to alter its basic form suddenly and completely. It is true that after the Meiji Restoration, Tokyo transformed itself from the many-layered closed system of a casde-town to the open system of a modern city. But it preserved the urban form of the past and modernized in a flexible manner by replacing only the contents of individual lots. Since the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment in the early Meiji period, Tokyo has taken Western cities as its model. But it would be a mistake to expect that an alien culture could be introduced and accepted as a total system. Western forms of architecture and urban design were incorporated gradually into the context of traditional Japanese cities, first by imitation combined with trial and error, and then by interpretation à la japonaise. This process produced an urban space and a cityscape encountered only in Japan. In all likelihood, this mode of adopting alien culture operates in much the same way even today. In thinking about contemporary Tokyo as part of a single, EdoTokyo history, we can identify three important periods in the structuring of urban space. First, and by far the most important, is the Edo period. The topography provided the most salient reasons for the formation of the city. Overlooking Tokyo Bay and situated at the edge of the Musashino Plain, Edo was favored with ideal conditions for the creation of an urban environment and a cityscape. In addition, this great castle-town used the topography masterfully in developing a system of roads and canals to divide the city into residential areas corresponding to the three major classes of warriors, commoners, and farmers. A residential environment and architectural forms suited to each class emerged: living spaces for the warrior class were created in the high city, with its varied land formations, whereas the commoners made their homes on land reclaimed from the river delta and threaded with canals in the low city.

INTRODUCTION

Broadly speaking, a city can be conceptualized in two ways. It can be seen as an artificial creation, following an urban plan based on the ideas of the rulers or leaders. This process becomes possible only when it is sustained by a definite Zeitgeist and urban ideal. Or a city can be seen as the space that its people actually inhabit. The varied activities of the people who live and work there give meaning to urban space and add to it an image of abundance. Literary approaches to the discussion of the city, naturally enough, take this approach. We can use both conceptions in looking at the formation of the city of Edo. Early Edo developed in accord with administrative intentions as a "planned space" based on a clear ideal of the castle-town. But after the Great Meireki Fire of 1657, and particularly after the middle of the Edo period, the city went beyond the framework of the castle-town, merging with its abundant natural setting as it developed toward the periphery. The high city as a garden city2 and the low city as a city on water—both became lived-in space that greatly enhanced Edo's appeal. Tokyo today lives with and through its history. Although Westernstyle architecture and modes of transport were introduced wholesale to the city in modern times, its basic framework could not be easily destroyed. The city of Edo provided the basic design upon which, layer by layer, the modern and present-day cities of Tokyo were built. The Meiji period, beginning with the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment, forms the second stage in the city's formation. During this period, a "loose" modernization was carried out by superimposing Western elements onto the legacy of Edo. With the collapse of the Tokugawa government, many daimyo establishments were left vacant. They provided facilities for the variety of urban functions necessary to Tokyo as the capital of a modern state. Although the district divisions and lot configurations—the basic framework of the city—remained virtually unchanged, the city was able to ease its way into the new age by altering the pattern of land use and replacing existing structures with more suitable, Western-style buildings. As it began to adopt alien, Western cultural elements, Meiji-period Tokyo became a testing ground that was fascinating in its intricate mixture of the new and the old. Curious and original combinations, which are often noted by foreign visitors walking about the city, represent a legacy of Meiji that still thrives today. In many cases, however, only the individual buildings were made conspicuous by their Western style, while the framework, or context, of the city remained that of Edo. In the end, the people could not conceive

6

INTRODUCTION

of entire districts made up of rows of buildings, or of the city as one great urban space. The problem for them remained how to express the spirit of civilization and enlightenment within the boundaries set by individual buildings and individual lots. Meiji-period Tokyo succeeded more or less easily to Edo's urban legacy and expressed the spirit of the new age by means of outstanding individual elements. In contrast, during the late Taisho and early Showa periods —the 1920s—Western ideas of city planning were introduced and knowledge of its methods of constructing urban space deepened appreciably. At this time the actual framework, or context, of Tokyo as a city was remade along modern lines. We can therefore treat this period as the third stage in the city's formation. Unlike the Meiji period, when the light of civilization and enlightenment shone almost exclusively on buildings belonging to the state and financial combines (zaibatsu), modernization in the 1920s made itself felt in the everyday urban spaces surrounding people's actual lives, where designs aimed not only at function and utility but at beauty and comfort as well. The modernist spirit, supported by the ideas of "Taisho democracy," created stylish modern urban spaces throughout Tokyo. Nearly all the urban spaces we enjoy today— the avenues, street corners, plazas, and parks —were built during this period. It was at this time, too, that citizens, experts, and administrators evinced a heightened concern toward Tokyo as a city. It is no exaggeration to say that the prototype of Tokyo as it appears today emerged during this period. In sum, present-day Tokyo is the result of the layering, one upon the other, of three historically formed strata. Their interaction has given Tokyo an appearance different from that of cities in the West, one unique to itself. Today, as Tokyo develops into a brilliant, international metropolis, only the dynamic uppermost layer meets the eye. In this book, I wish to apply the anatomist's scalpel to Tokyo from a variety of angles, descending to its deepest level in an effort to describe as fully as possible the distinctive features of its spatial structure. I hope, by uncovering and dissecting the development of Tokyo's urban space and the individuality expressed in its cityscapes, to provide a common ground for discussions of the Tokyo that ought to be. Whether in creating individual urban neighborhoods that make the most of their own special qualities or in designing expressive buildings for individual street-corner sites, I hope that this project will provide an effective guide.

CHAPTER ONE

The High City: Surface and Depths

Reading the City Recently, the publishing world has witnessed a "city boom" — especially an "Edo-Tokyo boom"—that shows no signs of abating. Grand, futuristic visions of the city, familiar from the heyday of rapid growth, have all but disappeared; now our concerns center on urban history and culture. Clearly, our ways of thinking about the city and the environment are in a dramatic transition. As Japanese, we have rushed through the modern era, tearing down and building up. Nevertheless, our awareness of how our urban environment has taken shape is rather poor. Most books that treat urban history tend to wax lyrical, failing to go beyond a nostalgic account. At the same time, "the city" has become a topic of fashionable discourse. But if the recent rise in concern about the city is not to end as a mere "boom," scholarly approaches to urban history must be set on a firm foundation. There are a variety of viewpoints and methods for looking at the historical legacy of Tokyo as an urban space. The simplest and most orthodox is to examine, one by one, every remaining old building. Researchers began with temples and shrines designated as cultural landmarks and with the earliest Western-style architecture; recently, they have broadened their interests to include the ordinary tradespeople's houses, back-alley tenements, and the nameless modern buildings found on every street corner. Nothing has escaped their attention. Another 7

8

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

interesting approach has traced the highways that pass through urban districts, stopping to give accounts of historically significant buildings or sites and to explain the topography of the hillside areas. But is that all that history has bequeathed to present-day Tokyo? Was the framework of Tokyo as a city really so fundamentally altered by the 1923 earthquake, wartime damage, and the destruction and renovation of decades of rapid growth? Suppose we pick up a city map from the Edo period and set out on a walk in today's Tokyo. Late Tokugawa drawings depicting each of the city's districts provide a perfect view of the structure of Edo. On a modern map, crammed with all manner of information, this structure completely escapes our attention. But on the older one, the framework of the city of Tokyo emerges vividly from underneath the jumbled surface created by the buildings and elevated highways of the modern city. It is an uncanny experience to walk along streets with the fresh perspective that such maps provide. Thus, even Tokyo, the quintessential urban desert, looks markedly different, depending on where we fix our focus. Even places we normally overlook turn out to contain rich distinctive features drawn from their past. We come away with a new awareness of the city in which we live. The possibility of "reading the city" in this fashion was first brought home to me while I was studying in the water-borne city of Venice and engaged in fieldwork among its mazelike streets. The true appeal of Venice lies not so much in the Piazza San Marco, the great churches, and the villas that are so popular with tourists as in the arrangement of the city as a whole, in which lowly houses, small squares, back streets, and canals have grown together organically to create a single living space. To find out what makes the whole cohere, one has to walk the city from end to end, map in hand, observing it fully, now from the land, now from the canals, and now from inside the houses themselves. For a curious observer like me, Venice —a city without automobiles—was the best of all possible places to work. Italy, moreover, was one of the first countries to become aware of the dangers of modern city planning. As the country battled a deep economic crisis, a desire developed to reconsider and revive the wonderful living spaces of the old towns, and methods were worked out to analyze their formation. In 1975 I was fortunate to learn about this new trend in scholarship while wandering among the Venetian mazes and reading their internal order. I published the results of my inquiries as Toshi

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

9

no runessansu (The renaissance of the cities; Chuo Koronsha paperback). With my Venetian experience as background, I decided when I returned to Japan that the time had come to survey the vast, chaotic metropolis of Tokyo. The first problem I encountered arose from the difference between a European culture of stones and bricks and a Japanese culture of wood. Whereas most of the buildings in Venice dated back to medieval times, in Tokyo it was all I could do to find a house that was a century old. Nevertheless, even in a culture of wood the historical structure of a city does not disappear overnight. To see what kinds of traces I could discover, I took a late Tokugawa map of Edo that indicated different types of land use: along with the network of roads, it clearly marked the group residences of daimyo, hatamoto (bannermen, or direct shogunal retainers), and samurai; temple and shrine land; and commoner and peasant districts. I superimposed it on a contemporary map of Tokyo drawn at a scale of 1:2500. Where there were conspicuous deformities on the original map, or areas where the physical transformation was dramatic, I consulted accurate maps from the Meiji period, such as the 1:5000 scale map drawn by the General Staff Bureau of Measurement in 1883-84 and the map prepared in 1896 by the Tokyo Post and Telegraph Bureau. Eventually, I was able to recreate virtually the entire original map. To my surprise, I found that not only the old Edo streets but also the pattern of district divisions and even the lot boundaries corresponded, in almost every instance, to the contemporary map. An exceedingly clear representation of the structure of the whole city emerged from the apparent chaos of contemporary Tokyo. I discovered that the old city of Edo lay almost entirely within the circle created by the present-day Yamanote train line. I began to walk through each and every area, guided by my composite map—just as I had done in Venice. We have become so accustomed to traveling by subway or elevated highway that we have become insensitive to the rich variety of features found in everyday life. "Reading the city" requires us to walk its streets and experience its spaces for ourselves. Only then do we acquire a feel for the spirit linking the area's topographical changes with the development of its neighborhoods. Only then do we realize how many local characteristics of the casde-town of Edo have been passed on to present-day Tokyo. In walking the city we see, for example, that the samurai districts that once took shape along the roads on the level hilltops have been replaced by quiet neighborhoods with private

IO

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

homes and schools, and the commoner districts that formed along the valley roads still bustle with shops of all kinds. A city is created out of a variety of elements. But these elements — whether buildings or roads —do not appear randomly, in isolation. Rather, they acquire their structure according to an established grammar and take their places alongside one another within a broader context. If we follow the right path, a city is not hard to read. In the case of Tokyo, the context for its distinctive character emerged as the vast casde-town of Edo was taking shape. Reading the city—walking the streets and experiencing firsthand the topography and the historical development of land-use patterns — may be the best way to discover the spatial framework that underlies the all-too-chaotic appearance of contemporary Tokyo. Such an undertaking may also help us to make sense of Edo itself— a city that many people feel has ceased to have any connection with the present. Re-created maps provide complete information about the location, exact dimensions, and topographical levels of land allotments, allowing us to grasp the techniques used in constructing neighborhoods and districts. We are able to read in extraordinary detail the principles on which the many sections of Edo were formed into a city. Such methods have been the cornerstone of research into city formation elsewhere. But it was surprising to find that they might be fruitfully applied to Tokyo, a metropolis where the intensity of change seems so great as to sever it from its own past.

Topography, Roadways, and Land Use This section shows what happens when I apply the methods just described to the rarely discussed topic of high-city Tokyo to provide a tentative account of its origins and growth. I look first of all at the topography that served as the basis for the city's formation and set the direction for its development. Next I analyze the network of roads that the city's inhabitants constructed for themselves, and finally, I examine the modes of land use suggested by the composition of the individual districts. When we reconsider Tokyo from this point of view, we are struck by how skillfully its personality has been realized. What in the city's background made this development possible? As we survey Tokyo's to-

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

n

pography, we note above all the richly varied setting that is the pride of the city, and we realize the unparalleled store of wisdom and experience that went into building the city in accord with it. Edo showed all the features of a classic casde-town: its casde stood at the tip of the Musashino plateau; its commoner quarters lay to the east, in the alluvial lowlands; to the west, atop a diluvial plateau, stood the high city, or Yamanote, where the warrior houses were gathered. The Yamanote was by no means a uniformly flat hill. The region's many rivers had carved valleys into the hills, giving the land numerous folds. Tokyo, like Rome, has seven hills: the highlands of Ueno, Hongo, Koishikawa-Mejiro, Ushigome, Yotsuya-Kojimachi, Akasaka-Azabu, and Shiba-Shirogane. Threading their way among these hills are five valleys: Sendagi-Shinobazu, Sashigaya, Hirakawa, Tameike, and Furukawa. This complex intersection of plateaux and valleys provided the most decisive conditions for the way the city was constructed. Yamanote is divided into three districts, which take Edo Casde (today's imperial palace) as their focal point: Johoku (north of the casde), Josai (west of the casde), and Jonan (south of the casde). The Musashino plateau itself rests on a multiplicity of terraced hills; with the Kanda River (also known as the Hirakawa) as the dividing line, we can see a marked topographical variation between the Musashino slope to the north and the Shimosueyoshi slope to the south (Fig. i). The area to the north of the Kanda River corresponds to Johoku. Here we find a succession of alternating uplands and valleys: Ueno (upland) — Sendagi-Shinobazu (valley) — Hongo (upland) — Sashigaya (valley) — Koishikawa-Mejiro (upland). That is, between each upland area, a fairly wide valley makes its way deep into the interior along a more or less straight north-south line. These valleys are distinct. They have few branches and are relatively simple in shape. It is likely that the Musashino slope was formed more recendy than the Shimosueyoshi slope to the south. Josai refers to the area south of the Kanda River and north of the line connecting Miyakezakashita, the Geihinkan (former Akasaka detached palace), and the Shinjuku Imperial Gardens. Like the Jonan area, it stands on the Shimosueyoshi side of the Yamanote; it includes the Ushigome uplands and the Yotsuya-Kojimachi valley. Unlike the Jonan, little of this area is made up of river-carved valley land; the landscape is shallow and gende. Because its upland extends so broadly, it was set aside early as the site of the middle- and lower-class warrior districts. To the south in the Jonan area, the large valleys formed by Tameike

12

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

Lake and the Furukawa River branch off into numerous side valleys: this is the distinct feature of the Shimosueyoshi slope. The side valleys have eaten their way into the hillsides, forming steep cliffs everywhere. There are a great many tongue-shaped, protruding uplands, along with independent island-shaped formations. The complexity of this topography means that, unlike other areas, the number of hills is enormous. Considered ideal for residences because of its varied uplands, this area was largely given over to daimyo establishments. Intimately related to this topography was the system of roads that formed the framework of the city. It is possible to identify the explicit principles or guidelines by which they were laid out. Wherever we look in the Yamanote, we see a dual structure formed by two types of road: the ones that follow the ridges and the ones that go along the valley floor. Many of the "hills" were created in places where these two types met. This arrangement, which is universal throughout the high city, was

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

13

produced out of the collective habits of the city's people, as a result of long historical experience and common local wisdom. We may call it part of the anthropological structuring of space in Japan. If we superimpose the main roads of the Edo period onto the present-day scene, we notice that they fall into a number of categories. First, the main roads radiating outward from the center of Edo were all ridge roads. The Nakasendo, for example — today's Hongo Don—ran along the Hongo uplands; the K6shu Kaido—from Edo to the province of Kai —ran along the ridge above Yotsuya-Kojimachi; the Atsugi Kaido—today's Aoyama Dori—ran along the ridges of Akasaka-Azabu. Walking along these roads today, we are aware that we are on a ridge when we see how the side roads lead downhill. Plans for ridge roads that served as interregional highways began to be laid out as soon as Tokugawa Ieyasu established himself in Edo Casde in 1590; but some such roads were already in existence at the time that Ota Dokan built the castle in 1+65. The clearest examples of outwardradiating ridge roads may be found in the Johoku area. Three interregional roads ran like spines through their respective areas: the Nakasendo, along the ridge of Hongo; Kasuga Dori, along the Koishikawa uplands; Mejiro Dori, along the ridge of Mejiro. Ring roads connected the interregional radial highways, forming the real high-city lines of Edo; the ring road between the Josai and the Jonan is especially noteworthy. This is the straight road that extends from Roppongi Crossing to Shiba Park (established in 1873 on the grounds of the Zojoji Temple), running in the very shadow of Tokyo Tower. Dating from the period after the Great Meireki Fire, this road is thought to have been laid out to give order to the expansion of Edo. Created next were the branch roads, which served the development of residential districts on the numerous small, tongue-shaped hills protruding from the city's seven major upland areas. They are particularly common in the Jonan area, where the lay of the land is complex. These roads were opened to provide approaches to the warrior establishments. Thus, there was a clear spatial ordering to the ridge roads that passed through the woods of the Musashino uplands. And it was among them that the members of Edo's warrior class, from daimyo to service groups, arranged their residences. All of the great highways and planned roads through the warrior districts came into being or were repaired during the construction of Edo as a casde-town. But a whole network of older roads is also lurking in Tokyo. Long before Tokugawa Ieyasu entered Edo Casde, villages were

14

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

springing up and agricultural land was being reclaimed along the many river and valley roads that lace through the Musashino uplands. As these roads crossed the saddle of the hills, they linked one village to another. These older roads were important before the Edo period, as the establishment of local temples attests. Take Zenpukuji, an important temple in Azabu, for example. Part of the Shingon sect, Zenpukuji was founded on the eastern slope of a favorably located hill during the ninth century. Then, as now, visitors approached the temple, with the verdant mande of its sacred precincts in the background, by way of the valley road below; most likely the temple road followed nearly the same path up the hill from the beginning, in a spatial structure that is prototypical among Japanese villages. The peasant population that was living in the watery lowlands set the direction for the later formation of the upland setdements. Once the pre-Edo village networks were surrounded by the castle-town, a unique urban structure, land-use pattern, and cityscape began to emerge. At the same time that wooded land on the uplands was being cleared for warrior settlements, peasant districts with their rows of roadside homes were being transformed into commoner quarters. The high city found a bustling plebeian counterpart along the "strips" of the low city. Even if their old merchant houses are no longer standing, such classic places as Otowa and Azabu Higakubo pass on to us today a special atmosphere, one born of intimate ties to the shape of the land. If we use historical documents and old maps from different periods to trace the city's formation, we can see that the city grew beyond the outer moat of Edo Casde in two distinct ways. First, daimyo mansions, warrior establishments, and commoner setdements moved continuously outward along the axes provided by the main ridge roads. The phenomenon of linear urban expansion along radial highways is common to cities in both the East and the West; it is a natural mechanism of urban growth. In Edo this development was most common along the great ridge roads—the Nakasendo (presentday Hongo Dori), Koshu-kaidd, and Atsugi-kaido (present-day Aoyama Dori) — and especially in the Johoku and Josai areas. But we must not forget that behind it lay a mode of development that was peculiar to cities like Edo. For every ridge road there was a valley road, and as we have seen, the peasant settlements that lined these roads gave way to commoner setdements, thus encouraging the city's growth. This is a special phenomenon encountered only in wet-rice cultures. Second, daimyo establishments were built, enclave-style, on protrud-

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

15

ing uplands or independent island-like hills; following their lead, the peasant areas below were converted into commoner settlements. Thus, urban development took place around many scattered nuclei. This mechanism, which is probably without parallel anywhere in the world, came into operation when the peculiar institutions of Japanese warrior society were added to the complex and varied natural terrain surrounding Edo. Because of the terrain, these were most common in the Azabu and Shirogane districts, to the south of the castle. In reading the structure of Tokyo as a city, the placement of the sacred spaces is extremely important. The three great protective temples of Edo —Sensoji in Asakusa, Toeisan Kan'eiji in Ueno, and Zojoji in Shiba—were situated according to Taoist precepts. Kan'eiji was established in the hills of Ueno in 1625, in the "demon's gate"—the taboo quarters — to the northeast of Edo Castle; and Zojoji was moved to its present site at the eastern fringe of Akasaka-Azabu in 1598 in order to guard the southwest quarter. Temple quarters formed around each of the three. At the time of their construction, the city precinct did not yet reach as far as the temples themselves; the idea was to surround the city with sacred space by placing the temples on distant uplands. In the same way, the innumerable temples that were located inside Edo tended to avoid the profane space of the crowded city streets, blending instead into natural surroundings on the city's outskirts. In the Yamanote particularly, temple grounds took on a symbolic structure: surrounded by vegetation, often at the edge of a hill with a splendid view, they were approached by a path up a hillside or a flight of steps. Because these temples were frequendy concentrated in neighborhoods at the heads of major highways, they played a role as protectors of the city. Because they gave rise to amusement quarters nearby, they also promoted the expansion and development of the city. In Edo, where the city grew in stages, the groups of temples are arranged in layers. And when a temple that had been surrounded by city streets moved to the outside, it often seemed that one part of the inner city had consciously constructed a radius outward. In Europe, cities grew by repeatedly breaking through and expanding beyond the hard shell of the city walls. In Edo, by contrast, the location of the temples and shrines and their use of the land around them meant that the city's life solifidied inside a series of soft shells. Shrine and temple lands not only served as sacred spaces; they also became natural showplaces for seasonal delights and popular entertainment spaces for the city's inhabitants. Thus, their distribution within

16

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

the city of Edo did not simply give physical form to the metropolitan areas. Intimately tied to people's images of the city, they helped to form a structure of meaning.

The Logic of Place We have surveyed the configuration of the high city according to its topography, network of roads, and temple location. Let us now examine the ways its residential districts were elaborated into a pattern of segregation peculiar to the casde-town: into districts made up of daimyô and hatamoto establishments, warrior group residences, and commoner quarters. It was the differences between the districts of casde-town Edo—which were passed on to contemporary Tokyo — that gave these areas their individual personalities. Let us first get a general idea of how the segregation of each stratum was carried out. Figure 2 shows the typical distribution of daimyô, hatamoto, lowerranking samurai, and commoner districts for the city of Edo. By and large, low city (shitamachi) or commoner districts occupied the area to the east of the casde, whereas warrior or high-city districts extended to the west. The level areas of the low city, built from reclaimed land around such sites as the Hibiya inlet, constituted a planned, checkerboard-style urban organization of sixty-few (360-foot) square units typical of the ancient jôbô land division system. Even the warrior districts contained planned areas — for example, in the level land immediately to the east and south of the castle. Present-day Marunouchi, formerly the location of hereditary vassal establishments known as daimyô alley, and the "outside lords'" establishments concentrated in the area from Sakurada down to Shiba and lower Atago, belong to this category. All were developed along a neat grid pattern measuring 60 x 80 x 120 ken (360 x 480 x 720 feet) per unit. In contrast, much of the high city, with its bumpy topography, looks at first to be a disordered mosaic landscape. Upon close observation, however, we find that each mosaic fragment can be classified into one of two groups: neady allocated urban organizations strongly suggestive of planning or irregular urban organizations closely adapted to their topographical setting. The first type is seen most clearly in the hatamoto and service-group residences built on level hilltops or along gendy sloping hillsides. Here,

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

17

highway •ft ) t " p "Ti 1 I T ~t M l y

"Till»

townspeople v

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daimyo

m s

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planned urban structure

hatamoto group housing

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daimyO unplanned urban structure townspeople J

2. Segregated residential sections.

despite the variation in the topography, direct roads have been built and regular lot divisions have been established within defined boundaries. Here, too, the module of area planning has been the 360-foot-square jobo unit. This type of planned residential area for middle- and lowerclass warriors developed especially early on top of the comparatively level hills to the west of the casde. The second type consists of high-city daimyo establishments and commoner quarters in the valleys. Between the daimyo residences on

18

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

the ridge roads and hilltops, cliffs and other topographical features formed natural boundary lines; thus, irregularity was the norm. Similarly, the commoner districts lacked the planned character of a casdetown. Because they were formed as the sprawling city of Edo incorporated what had been farming villages, their shapes followed the original landscape. As we have seen, in developing its system of roads, the high city simply followed the organic movement of the mixed valley-and-hill topography; it could not elaborate a powerful and clear urban structure that would govern the area as a whole. Quite the opposite: by carefully using every fold of the landscape as an element of the design, it laid out an urban framework appropriate to each of its segments so as to create a mosaic pattern that was in harmony with the land itself. The guiding principle of city formation in high-city Edo can be understood as the pursuit of a balance between the will to plan that is common to all castle-towns, and the adaptation to the original topography that is characteristic of the Musashino uplands. On the one hand, a respectful attitude was taken toward the ecology of the city as a whole; on the other, planning was introduced piecemeal in laying out the residential districts. This two-pronged method gave shape to the variegated urban environment. Even though the city of Edo was a typical planned castle-town in part, it possessed a spatial structure that made it completely different from European cities of the Renaissance and since, which were built according to rational, geometric principles. Edo's distinctiveness derives from the city's relationship to its natural environment. Japanese urban spaces have been organized within an intimate relationship to nature and the topography; the residents' perception of their physical base has enriched their image of the city. In contrast to the modern city, with its vast quantities of homogeneous space, Japanese cities developed as accumulations of topoi replete with expressions of memory and meaning tied to human life.1 The people of the city, perceiving the existence of the spirits of the land in such places, always strove to create an environment imbued with the personality of place. From the first, the high city of Edo — that is, the hill districts — developed in the rich natural setting of the Musashino uplands and the low city in the reclaimed delta land of the waterside districts.2 Here, a variety of urban functions were conducted in appropriate places ingeniously laid out for just these purposes. It is conceivable that the master plan for Edo as a castle-town was already in existence by the early Tokugawa

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

19

period. But as the site of economic activity and residential life, Edo transcended mere functionality and utility: it was also a richly symbolic world consisting chiefly of natural elements such as foresdand and water and crowned with human activities. A city cosmology came into being there. Edo was a rich composite of urban morphologies. Its formation was guided by a view of planning that attached fundamental importance to the context of the many places that constituted it. If the land was irregular—if, for example, it sloped—a proper way would be found to use it: if there were a spring, a pond could be dug, and the site turned into a daimyô residence. In this way, wisdom handed down from the past served the present, and city places were used to the fullest extent, to produce a total urban delight. Modern city planning, by contrast, has proceeded from a diametrically opposite point. With no concern for the individual conditions of particular sites and in willful ignorance of the underlying powers of place, land has been reclaimed and establishments erected that look absolutely the same wherever they occur. Venerable rivers and ponds have been filled in, and vegetation destroyed. In the same way, the forced changing of place-names has gone on apace. The ideal of modern architecture — to create universal space in every possible location — has proceeded from the same point. The field of architecture and city planning has finally begun to overturn this sense of values. In thinking about cities, we now try to grasp to the fullest the conditions of place, including the memories and meanings associated with them. This change provides one important reason for the ongoing réévaluation of Japan's early modern (1600-1867) urban experience.

The "Lot" as a Keyword How then has Tokyo, successor to the urban masterpiece of Edo, changed the physical structure of the city since the Meiji Restoration in 1868? Despite the drastic institutional transformation of the city from the political center of the bakuhan system to the capital of a modern state, the changes in the structure of the city have not radically denied the structure of Edo. To be sure, the narrow streets that set the pace of movement have been widened since early Meiji. The right-

20

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

angled corners and staggered rectangular strips of land intended to slow the progress of an enemy, which gave the city its distinctively closed feudal character, have been eliminated. But on the whole, Tokyo has resolutely held on to its inherited structure and developed as a modem city squarely atop this older structure. Changes have come about most vigorously within the individual lots forming the living cells of the city. On lots in the old warrior districts that became vacant with the loss of their former inhabitants, the bearers of the new Tokyo appeared—provincial warriors drawn mainly from Satsuma and Choshu domains — replacing old elements of the city with the new. In this way, Tokyo changed its function and meaning in reponse to the demands of the new age. The central role in this process of "soft" reconstruction was played by the scattered former daimyo establishments that the new capital had inherited from the old. Because it took shape in this unique fashion, modern Tokyo displays a highly distinctive organizational pattern, one brought forward from the casde-town of Edo and not seen in foreign cities. As it became visible, it also gave rise to a unique urban vista. In this sense, too, the greatest key to grasping the particular character of Tokyo as a city lies in penetrating its ongoing relationship to the spatial structure of Edo. Using the basic pattern provided by the urban structure of Edo, we can take the following steps to unravel the soft and almost elegant process of reconstruction that led to the formation of modern Tokyo: 1. Elucidate the urban context formed during the Edo period. 2. Elucidate the mechanism by which modern elements were incorporated into this context. 3. Analyze the unique structure that emerged as a result. At this point, I would like to turn to what may best be termed the "mold" in which the residential types were first formed and then set into stratified zones determined by social status. Here, too, we can perceive a unique spatial structure emerging from constructive wisdom accumulated over long historical experience. In each zone, we see how the area and form of the lots accorded with the overall nature of the land in use, and how classification rules for architecture according to land surface, structure, and design were clearly established within each lot. Forms were elaborated to govern features visible from the street, such as indications of status (the gates, walls, and gardens of row houses and individual houses), and structural elements were combined to create the spe-

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

21

rial appearance of each neighborhood. Every element was originally related to its function in daily life but eventually came to exist as a common cultural norm that contributed to the symbolic meaning and aesthetic sense of the city. In this way, the fine, delicate context of the city emerged. From its overall configuration down to each individual scene, Edo was constructed according to a splendid scenario. The result was an urban masterpiece equal to any city in the world. The modern city of Tokyo inherited the context of castle-town of Edo, with its various residential zones, serially and virtually undisturbed. Commoner quarters became commercial districts where merchants and artisans made their homes; shogunal retainer establishments became the grand homes of aristocrats, high government officials, and the new bourgeoisie; lower-class warrior quarters opened up to receive the salaried workers of the middle class. While trailing the life and culture of former days behind it, each zone took firmly in hand the task of making a modern city of Tokyo. Not only did the physical framework of neighborhood and lot divisions remain undisturbed; in many cases, there was also direct continuity in cultural norms, which were defined within the lots of a district by the way buildings were situated and rooms laid out. Within this stable context, people avidly added new, eye-catching modern elements — in the high city, a fancy Western-style building or parlor; in the low city, a Western-style façade for a shopfront. The result was a singularly eclectic appearance. Nevertheless, at the basic level of spatial structure, the essential features of Edo urban forms were passed on unaltered. Time passes, buildings are lost. But such a historical legacy does not disappear easily. Instead, it defines today's urban districts and serves as a check on the depersonalization of life and culture. Tokyo, although advanced in its modernization and the homogenization of its space, has preserved the widely varied images of place that make up the high city, partly because of its richly varied landscape and abundant greenery and partly because of its unique spatial—or better, anthropological—structure, a specific combination of lot, building, and street in a specific urban place. The cityscape of Edo-Tokyo results from a skillful reading of the land and a concerted effort toward making the most of the individuality of each place within it. As a result, it has proven productive in thinking about the formation of the city and its architecture in a historical and

22

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE A N D DEPTHS

cultural context to take the lot as the starting point. I am defining city as the combination of lot- and neighborhood-divisions with the road system, and their direct relationship to the lay of the land; by architecture, I mean the configurations created by the intimate interrelation of gates, approaches, gardens, and open space. Architecture includes not just everyday profane space within buildings, but also the sacred space of gardens and small shrines, as these tighdy packed elements and meanings work together to form a little universe. Particularly in the high city, which developed in full recognition of the individuality of its constituent places, the lot can become an important keyword for reading the city. In European cities where buildings facing the street share a common wall, there is a strong tendency for lot to equal architecture and for lots to be built up as whole entities. In contrast, in Japan great meaning is invested in external space, beginning with the garden inside the lot; this is the case whether we are talking about merchant houses or daimyô residences. The forms produced by the tension between external space and architecture are crucial to understanding the structure of everyday life and culture. Particularly when we are looking at the problems that arose during the modernization of Tokyo as foreign elements were incorporated, we must keep in mind that this process was carried out in accord with a traditional, and still salient, sense of space. With these points in mind, I would like to examine in detail the residential zones of the high city. These areas, which were a peculiar feature of the casde-town, were organized according to the social status of their residents, whether daimyô, hatamoto, or commoner. Let us first analyze the development of the daimyô establishments, where changes have been most pronounced in modern times.

Daimyô Establishments Tokyo could be transformed into the capital city of a modern state because it already possessed the perfect instruments for such a transformation. The lots occupied by former daimyô establishments could readily provide the buildings and facilities needed for the city's new political, military, educational, cultural, and administrative establishments and also for the grand residences of aristocrats and the new ruling classes of Meiji. In contrast to the commoner districts in the low

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

23

city, where merchant houses and row houses lined up tighdy along the main streets and back alleys, the samurai —and especially the daimyo— residential areas in the high city enjoyed vast garden settings unimaginable in a Western city.3 As a result, the urban structure of Tokyo escaped the kind of major surgery experienced by every European capital during the nineteenth century: consider Haussmann's reconstruction of Paris, the Ringstrasse in Vienna, or the reconstruction of Rome that continued until Mussolini's time. Instead, because the now-masterless lots of the high city absorbed new and foreign elements individually, a continuous, flexible modernization program was possible, which would not destroy the basic urban framework. Thus, an examination of these sites and their spatial structures provides an important key to the reading of Tokyo. A later section looks at the great daimyo establishments; the discussion here focuses on the residential areas of the high city in general. Under the sankin kotai system, daimyo from all over Japan were ordered to maintain primary residences in Edo; after the Great Meireki Fire, they began to establish "middle" and "lower" suburban residences in addition. Gradually, daimyo establishments came to occupy most of the favorable locations in the high city. Taking full advantage of the natural beauty of the Musashino uplands, these residences boasted extensive gardens and served as private or vacation quarters for their occupants. Poised artlessly on top of the hills of Edo, these large-scale suburban establishments appeared at first glance to subscribe to no particular rules of siting, layout, or construction. There were no planned lot divisions; indeed, these residences seemed to be entirely free of urban constraints. But not even high-city Edo was so loosely created. When we plot the location of these establishments on accurate modern maps and compare them, we notice a number of common principles in their siting and the arrangement of buildings within their respective lots. We realize that clear intentions underlay the whole process of design and construction: the builders read the folds of the landscape and planned the approach roads with great skill, paying careful attention to their directional orientation. Even in the high city, all living space was composed according to a thoroughly considered scenario. In most cases, daimyo residences faced a highland ridge road (Fig. 3). Where the lot sloped, any natural springs caused by the uneven surface were used to create a pond, and a landscape garden was laid out.

24

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

main ridge road

branch ridge road

hilltop

3. Conceptual diagram of daimyo residential lots. Whenever possible, residential areas were located south of the ridge road, with the actual buildings on the level high ground toward the northern section of the lot and the garden on the south-facing slopes. We can see here a desire to open up the buildings to the sun in accord with the belief that "the sovereign faces south"; these residences clearly reflect long-nourished preferences among the Japanese in arranging their physical environment. Let us take a look at the ridge roads that run outward through the Musashino uplands. Although they follow routes that curve slightly in obedience to the topography, these are comparatively straight roads that suggest a high degree of planning. Because the high city spreads out across the uplands to the west of Edo, most of the interregional highways run east-west. Old maps show a number of daimyo residences located south of these highways: examples include the "lower" (suburban) residences of the Naito house (now the Shinjuku Imperial Gardens) on the Koshu-kaido (Kai Highway), the Aoyama house on Aoyama Dori (now Aoyama Cemetery), the Kuroda house on Mejiro Dori (now the Chinzanso restaurant), and the Hosokawa house in what is now ShinEdogawa Park. These locations cannot have been fortuitous. Many of the sites — such as the Shinjuku Imperial Gardens, Chinzanso, and ShinEdogawa Park—have continued the old pattern of development by preserving garden ponds that were created during the Edo period. The only north-south ridge road in all of Tokyo is the Nakasendo, which runs through the Hongo uplands. Many of the areas through which it passes escaped earthquake and war damage and thus retain their

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

25

historical environments. Let us, therefore, observe closely as we walk through them. Passing first through the Ochanomizu heights between the Kanda Myojin Shrine and the Confucian temple at Yushima, the road turns to the north. We walk from the Hongo 3-chome station on the Marunouchi subway line along the highway (now Hongo Dori) in the direction of the University of Tokyo. Just to our right at the intersection of Kasuga Dori, we find the renowned Kaneyasu cosmetics shop, which was immortalized in the following comic poem: Hongo mo Kaneyasu made wa Edo no uchi. At least as far as Kaneyasu, Hongo belongs to Edo. In fact, after the Great Meireki Fire, Edo as a whole, including the areas along the Nakasendo, developed outward, so Hongo truly did "belong to Edo." If we walk a little further along the ridge highway, we catch a glimpse of the famed Kikuzaka hill, curving gendy down to the left. Proceeding north, we come to the edge of the University of Tokyo campus, where the structure of Edo's periphery is well preserved even today. Located east of the highway, the campus was the site of the "upper," or main, residence of the Maeda family, the lords of Kaga Province. Across the road to the west was the residence of the Honda family. And on the far side of a litde valley, at a fork where the Nakasendo turns to the northwest, the Abe family, lords of Fukuyama Province, maintained their residence in the hills south of the highway, creating a pleasing balance among the three locations. Let us focus for a moment on the university campus. Located on the favorable eastern side of the highway, the site was famed for its gardens. First to come into view is Akamon — literally, "Red Gate"—which faces out onto Hongo Dori (the former Nakasendo). It was built as a "guardian gate" when the daughter of the eleventh shogun, Tokugawa Ienari, married into the Maeda house (Fig. 4). Inside the gate, on the east side where the lot slopes gently downward, we find the famed Sanshiro's Pond. This pond was the focal point of the original walk-through landscape garden. As we have seen, many such ponds were created at the foot of upland slopes on the grounds of residences like these; many continue today to soothe the hearts of visitors to parks and university campuses. The vicinity of Hongo, then, is a classic example of an area defined

26

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

4. Goshudenmon (guardian gate) of the main Maeda residence.

by the upland concentration of daimyo residences. But it would be wrong to think that this area consisted of nothing more than a line of somber mansions. Facing the university on the other side of the Nakasendo, a row of merchant houses still stands today. Although they date from the Meiji period, these "protruding-beam" buildings exemplify the combined workplace-and-home tradition of commoner architecture. Among these houses run dead-end alleys, which used to be lined with tenements. At the end of the alleys, which lie to the west, stand temples. After the Great Meireki Fire, the temples were systematically removed from the center of Edo and placed along major highways, where they formed a large temple district at the edge of the suburban areas. Temple approach roads were built between the houses. The Hongo thus is a perfect illustration of a typical roadside neighborhood, with its merchant houses facing the highway, long strips of commoner row houses, and temples behind them. We have been considering the daimyo residences that were built along the major upland ridge roads. In the districts south of the castle— particularly in places like Azabu, with interlaced uplands and valleys — branch ridge roads spread out from the main or circular ridge roads,

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

Z7

which centered on a prominence. Comparatively small daimyo establishments stood along them. Here, too, the buildings were erected on level areas of the hills, with gardens laid out along the downward slopes or at the bases of cliffs. These branch roads were opened later, some specifically to facilitate the development of new land for daimyo use. Others were opened in areas already occupied by daimyo residences, to facilitate expansion. A typical example is the upper reaches of Toriizaka, currently occupied by the International House of Japan and Toyo Eiwa Girls' School. Maps from the middle and the late Edo periods mark the appearance of a straight branch road across the top of the ridge and the streamlining of the arrangement of daimyo residences on either side. This kind of redevelopment did not simply allow a more efficient use of land: the entrances to daimyo establishments, which had been built along the valley roads when development was still fairly haphazard, were now moved to the main ridge roads. In this way, the dual residential structure peculiar to the high city— where the world of the warriors above was linked to the world of the commoners below—took a clear shape in the districts south of the casde. Joining the world above to the one below (present-day Azabu Juban) is the hill now known as Toriizaka. With all the daimyo residences built alongside each other, it was no longer possible for everyone to have the preferred southern exposure, but builders did continue to lay out gardens with a central pond on the slopes to the rear of the lot. In the Jonan area between Akasaka and Shirogane, there were scattered examples of daimyo residences that occupied an entire hillock. Jonan was, from the beginning of the Edo period, a beautiful suburban district: through the hilltop woods, Mount Fuji could be seen to the west, and the sea to the east, while gende pastoral scenes extended over a richly varied landscape. From early on, daimyo who maintained their chief residences within the casde precincts sought out locations in this district for hawking or for relaxed private homes or country residences. Here we notice a phenomenon that was unique to the castle-town: the existence within the same urban space of two contrary vectors of consciousness — the commoner's "establishing a shop" and the warrior's "establishing a grand residence." In European cities, powerful aristocrats generally sought to participate actively in every aspect of city life and made a point of building their mansions facing the public squares and central thoroughfares. Such cities were organized according to clear and simple principles, and the social hierarchy of a given city was immediately embodied in its spatial hierarchy. In Japanese cities,

28

T H E HIGH CITY: SURFACE A N D DEPTHS

5. Commoner house in Nihonbashi, early Meiji. Tokyoshoko hakuran e (The commerce and industry of Tokyo).

the principles for organizing space in the warriors' high city differed completely from those at work in the commoners' low city. To begin with, commoners aspired to set up shop, as imposingly as possible, on a prosperous, busy street. Particularly in Edo-Tokyo, where the private commoner houses located in the interior of a lot were plain and simple, shops facing the main streets were built on a much grander scale. Godown warehouse style, with its thick exterior plaster, was employed not only to prevent fires but also to display the dignity of the establishment (Fig. 5). This orientation to the street was applied quickly to the creation of the modern city, giving rise to what has been called "design for appearance," in which the latest, most stylish features are added only to the front exterior while the rest of the building remains unchanged. We can discern here a connecting thread to the flood of signs and frenetically changing fashionable surfaces in the Tokyo of today. The true form of urban architecture in Japan is a product of commoner culture. In contrast, members of the warrior class, who took no part in such urban activities as production and transport, aspired to establish grand residences in the midst of rural solitude. Thus, independent houses with attached gardens, which would only have been built in Europe as country villas or part of modern suburbs, appeared widely in the urban centers of Japan. This is one reason that Edo has been called a grand garden

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

29

6. Residence of 4,000-5,000 koku (18,000-22,500 bushels of tax rice) shogunal retainer. Edo bakujuyakushoku shûsei (Compendium of Edo government offices). city. And this kind of attitude toward living space continues to inform the sensibilities of present-day Japanese, who aspire to live in an independent house with a garden, however cramped it might be. In Japanese city neighborhoods today, the dual aspirations for a shop and a grand residence are expressed in various combinations, creating a great variety of urban vistas. The meaning of the phrase "to establish a grand residence" is nowhere clearer than in the daimyo areas (Fig. 6). These seats of privilege, with their conspicuously individual ties to the land, represent the nonurban residence par excellence. As we have seen, they were in upland locations, as often as possible high up on the most favorable southern slope of a hill; the main buildings occupied a level area (toward the north), with the rear of the lot (to the south) skillfully turned into a garden. Natural springs became a pond, the focus of a walk-through landscape garden. In this way, the individual elements of topography, roads, lot, garden, and buildings created a spendidly unified type of urban space.

30

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

7. Row house gate of the Kuroda residence.

They also created vistas along the street side of the residence, which were visible to passersby. In Europe, where urban public space was considerably more developed, aristocrats' villas often boasted grand façades with large windows wide open to a square or street. In Japan, however, the row houses of feudal retainers and the gates to their compound formed a virtual wall along the streets that ran around the lot. This closed structure projected a sense of imposing—even overweening— power to the outside world and created urban vistas of confident majesty. The picture in Figure 7 shows the Kuroda family establishment, which was built on the level land between the Mita hills and the Furukawa River, as it looked during the final decades of the Tokugawa period. It illustrates vividly the typical vista that was formed by a long solemn line of row houses, interrupted by the compound gate. With the coming of the Meiji period, the row houses and their compound gates became unnecessary and were taken down, to be replaced by high walls and occasional gates. Fancy Western-style buildings were incorporated into the mansions of the wealthy, and great changes in architecture and environmental design appeared. Nevertheless, the aspiration to mark out a sphere of private territory for the "establishment of a grand residence" remained powerful; indeed, the people of Meiji willingly inherited the unique urban structure produced by the unity of the daimyô establishments. They often placed a Western-style building

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3i

for the formal reception of guests at the most visible location along the approach, so that it became the establishment's outward face. An observer is immediately struck by the distinctively Japanese character of this arrangement. Even university campuses and other school architecture, set symmetrically along a radial approach road according to a Western design, retained their traditional sense of place: the private space they represented wasfirmlymarked off by a wall, watchposts were set up alongside the gate, and free movement in and out was not permitted. This peculiarly Japanese type of campus is now a common element in the cityscape. The university's image as a place of "ivory towers" and the fact that campuses are rarely open to the public in Japan must be intimately related to the sense of private space we have been discussing. There are many lots that preserve the typical spatial structure, even in Tokyo today. The uplands of the Toriizaka hill in Azabu, mentioned earlier, provide one example, but the most astonishing is the plateau on top of Mita Tsunasaka. Here, taking advantage of the gentle slope along the south side of the east-west ridge road, the Australian embassy, the Mitsui Club, and the Italian embassy stand aligned in splendid daimyomansion fashion. Indeed, not only the daimyo establishments but also the hillside as a whole were developed according to tried-and-true Japanese methods, by reading the face of the land and skillfully making the most of the individuality of each location. Let us read a little more closely into the formation of the neighborhood as well, by walking through the environs of the hillside and taking in its fully matured cityscape. Making our approach from the lowlands to the north, we see that the Furukawa River, rechanneled during the middle of the Edo period, makes a right angle and runs along the foot of the hill. Now confined beneath an elevated highway, this canal is polluted and scarcely noticed by passersby. But the few remaining lumber dealers along its banks call to mind past ages when such establishments flourished here in great numbers, thanks to their ties to water transport. Turning off the main street and south along the back alleys, we enter Mita Koyamacho, a neighborhood brimming with the feeling of the low city. Formerly the site of the daimyo establishments of the Kuroda family, the overlords of Kai Province, and of Matsudaira Tokinosuke, the area was developed after mid-Meiji into commoner quarters. With its merchant houses and row tenements tightly packed among the alleyways, this is a living environment truly reminiscent of low-city Edo. Passing through the back streets and making our way to the furthest

32

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

interior of the neighborhood, we come upon a cliff that marks the boundary with the temple district occupying the nearby upland. As we ascend the narrow stone stairway—and take a sidelong glimpse at the adjacent graveyard—we emerge at the rear of two temples, Chokyuji and Kyoseiji. Snaking its way through the deep recesses of the district, this labyrinthine space corresponds to the boundary area between the Edo-period mansions and the temple lots; thus, it holds one key to the historical development of the high city. When we reach the top of the back road leading to the site of the former Daijoji Temple, the world suddenly changes. Here, along the east-west ridge road that connects Ninohashi to Mita Don, we are treated to one of Tokyo's most superb urban vistas. Here, on the south side of the ridge road, stood the main residence of the Shimazu lords of Awaji during the closing decades of the Tokugawa era; the site is now divided between the Australian embassy (to the west) and the Mitsui Club (to the east). The current Australian embassy was bought after World War II from the family of the Marquis Hachisuka, which had made its home there from the early Meiji period. The British-style mansion (designed by Moriyama Matsunosuke) occupies the former site of a large daimyo establishment laid out in typical aristocratic fashion, which was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. On the gentle slope to the south — legend has it — Watanabe no Tsuna, the retainer of Minamoto Yorimasa, received his first bath as a newborn baby; a beautiful Japanese garden, complete with a well named in Watanabe's honor, now delights the eye. On the eastern side of the road running south down the hill stands the Mitsui Club building. The property of the Mitsui family since the late Meiji period, the site still preserves, alongside the main gate, the long row house that once quartered the Shimazu domain retainers and their families. All domain retainers resident in Edo were quartered in such row houses, which formed a wall surrounding every daimyo establishment; many such buildings were also found in the interior of the lot. The rear of the garden, along the approach to the mansion, is graced by a Western-style structure designed in 1913 by the English architect Josiah Conder. Moving south, around toward the back side, we come upon a cheerful Western-style lawn presided over by a balcony, laid out in the symmetrical fashion typical of the Renaissance. Designed by Conder to form a unity with the architecture of the house, the garden makes visitors wonder if they have been transported to the grounds of a modest palazzo somewhere in Europe.

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

53

And yet, at a lower level to the south, surrounded by a grove of trees, a Japanese-style garden has been painstakingly laid out between the slope and the lowland below, thus leaving distinct traces of the daimyo mansion that once stood on the site above. By adding modern, Western forms to the traditional spatial context, such designs allow us to appreciate the splendid coexistence of different elements that makes the environment of the high city so distinctive. This Japanese garden, in turn, makes up part of the vista seen from the high-rise condominiums to the south of the Mitsui Club; here, too, we have a scene typical of Tokyo today. To the east, the mansion of the aristocratic Matsukata family, built on the site of a former "middle" residence of the Matsudaira lords of Oki, now houses the Italian embassy. Here again, on the south side of the grounds, we find a beautiful walk-through landscape garden typical of Edo. Further along, on a section of the hill extending to the southeast— formerly the site of another Matsudaira family "middle" residence, that of the director of the Imperial Palace Keeper's Bureau—stands the campus of Keio University. The bustling commercial street that runs along the base of the cliff on the east side of the hill has its roots in the Edoperiod commoner district of Mita. Looking just below the Gothic-style red brick library that towers over the hilltop campus, we can recognize the outline of Kasuga Shrine, which was reached by a road between the merchant houses—what a contrast! Reading our way through Tokyo in this fashion—for example, taking a close look around the hill at Mita—provides us with a series of unexpected spatial experiences. We come to understand almost physically the historical layering that has taken place in Tokyo since the Edo period. Once we have had the sweet experience of walking through Tokyo with our senses awakened, wherever we venture in the long-familiar high city, its urban space will appear to us in a fresh, new light. So far, we have been relying on concrete examples to explain the postMeiji development of sites occupied by former daimyo establishments. It is now time to address the matter more systematically. Daimyo establishments underwent two major transformations in modern times, as Figure 8 shows. The first transformation occurred after the Meiji Restoration, when many of these establishments reverted to the central government. They were either converted, with the lot framework unaltered, into public facilities (government offices, embassies, and military, cultural, or educational facilities) or turned into residences for Kyoto court nobles who had moved to Tokyo as newly minted aristocrats, or for

34

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS Edo

Mciji

Earthquake

War

Present

high officials in the new government. In addition, a considerable number of daimyo establishments in the high city remained in the hands of their former occupants, who had received aristocratic titles under the new dispensation. The second transformation occurred after World War II, when most military facilities and mansions were converted to public use, made into hotels, or cleared for general residential use. In either case, this phenomenon contributed to the creation, in the very center of Tokyo, of a green environment. This is something one could never see in a European city, dominated at its center by phalanxes of aristocratic mansions (the example of the Italian palazzo suffices). A number of widely frequented public parks were created from the pondgardens of former daimyo residences: the Shinjuku Imperial Gardens and Arisugawa, Sudo, and Shimizudani parks are all examples. When examining the formation of Tokyo as a city, we are struck by how little of the urban framework is actually a product of the modern period and by how much the modern city consists of elements that were added on to the still highly serviceable urban setting of Edo.

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

35

9. Mita Koyamachò today.

In the 1910s and 1920s, many former daimyo establishments that had already been converted into aristocrats' mansions were further developed, into general residential property. Take a walk through Azabu, for example, an area south of the imperial palace that largely escaped destruction during the 1923 earthquake and World War II. There we can find three types of modern residential district, which, though they lie in close proximity to one another, could not be more different in appearance. They constitute a kind of museum of modern Japanese residential

36

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

io. Spanish Village today. history. We can learn much by comparing their topography, lot conditions, period and method of development, styles of architecture, and social strata of their residents. Let us look again at Mita Koyamachô, which lies in the lowland along the Furukawa River (Fig. 9). Beginning as early as mid-Meiji, as the construction of factories connected with local river transport proceeded, petty capitalists developed the district into homes for merchants and manual workers, who lived in individual or row houses along its alleyways. It continued, therefore, to display the Edo-period atmosphere of many commoner living spaces. Unlike the closed cul-de-sacs of Edo, however, many of these alleyways allowed through traffic. And, because the configuration of the previous daimyô establishments was still fresh in the collective memory, important alley roads were aligned with the approaches to the original row house gates. Now take a look at the grounds of the former Abe family establishment at Azabu Kasumichô. After mid-Meiji new capitalists and large developers opened up the area, located on level land atop a hill, and gave it a complete sectoral layout. First, the new capitalists bought the land on the north side, and landlords began to manage rentals. The land seems to have been rented to senior businessmen, while houses were

38

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

built to rent to rank-and-file office workers. On the northern slopes and elsewhere, yardless hovels faced directly onto the street, resembling the houses of low-city families that had lost their businesses. If we compare a city map drawn up in 1883 by the General Staff Bureau of Measurement with one produced later, we see that the division of neighborhoods into residential districts was, in fact, based without alteration on the road pattern established within the lots by the disposition of samurai row houses. Daimyo establishments had numerous roads running through them and many buildings distributed across their grounds, so that they often took on the character of a small neighborhood. On the other hand, the hill to the south, called Abeyama, was subdivided by the Mitsui Trust Company during the 1910s and converted to the kind of well laid-out residential land proper to senior employees. We can discern in the planned layout of such districts a prototype of today's suburban development. Then there is a curious section called Spanish Village, located in a depression among the hills of Azabu Iikura Katamachi (Figs. 10 and 11). Originally the main residence of the Otawara house, it changed ownership during the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-26) years. Finally, around 1935 it became the property of the agronomist Ueda Bunzaburo, who was also well known for his promotion of the popular "cultural modernism." Ueda turned the area into a residential development lined with stylish apartment buildings. The idea for this project had come to Ueda when he and his son were visiting the United States on an agricultural mission and became enchanted by the Spanish colonial-style architecture of the West Coast. On his return to Japan, Bunzaburo, though a complete amateur, worked with his son to design the project. The unusual exterior, with every window a different size and shape, was the idea of a local carpenter. While the colonial style creates a rather exotic feeling, the layout of apartments within the development follows the traditional Japanese row house pattern, so the total effect is of a Western-style row house facing out on a low-city alleyway. Bonsai plants and everyday implements are placed casually in the alley itself. The incorporation of a traditional spatial structure within a modernist project has created a space where the modern world and the world of Edo blend together. When the Spanish Village was built, it was a mere fifteenminute taxi ride from the Ginza, and its residents, we understand, included many cafe waitresses and entertainers. It is easy to imagine the mobo and moga (modern boys and girls) setting off on expeditions to the Ginza. Today the area nearby has changed beyond recognition. But

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

39

just take a walk down one lane off the main street with its frenetic traffic and jostling office buildings: there, basking in unbelievable quiet, stands this still-stylish four-unit apartment house. It serves as a reminder of Japan's short-lived but vital experiment with modernism. The three districts just described have a common origin in the daimyo establishments of the high city, yet the courses they have pursued and their contemporary appearances are completely different. In them, one sees in miniature the variety of faces that have developed in modern Tokyo. In Tokyo, the grounds of former daimyo mansions were not developed by breaking up their unity as "lots" but rather by working within the existing framework. Because these mosaic-like lots were woven into the fabric of the city as a whole, the alterations in its appearance acquired a softness over time. The wholesale reconfiguration of the city that took place in Europe never occurred in Tokyo. Modern Tokyo has preserved its historical memory amid many changes in its parts; as a result, the city that emerged seems to lack an overall logical structure. If we use the modern cities of the West as our criteria for judging modern Tokyo, we will never be able to lay hold of its distinctive features or its charm.

Hatamoto Residences It is puzzling that, even though commoner districts and daimyô establishments have frequendy become the topics of inquiry, litde concern has been shown for the formation of the quarters that housed Edo's middle- and lower-ranking warriors. In modern times the streets in commoner quarters have been widened or redirected in connection with district revisions or land readjustments because of the earthquake and the war. In contrast, nearly all the roads running through the warrior areas have quietly remained exacdy as they were. What is most noteworthy about these areas is their beautifully planned character. Examples abound of uniform neighborhood and lot divisions created by the straight roads through these basically complete and independent units, which nonetheless respect the subtle variations in the high-city topography. Here we see, particularly in places laid out early in the Edo period, the very essence of what it means to create urban neighborhoods in a castle-town.

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THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

Let us venture first into Bancho, an area of middle-ranking hatamoto residences on top of the Kojimachi upland. This upland to the west of the casde boasts a favorable topography and ease of development. It was the area set aside by the Tokugawa upon their entrance into Musashino Province, as residential quarters for their housemen, who had moved in great numbers from the three provinces of Suruga, Totomi, and Mikawa. In a manner quintessential to the casde-town, warrior districts extended in the form of a clear three-level hierarchy all through the area west of the casde. Within the casde precincts, in the area between today's Momijiyama and the Fukiage palace immediately to the west, stood the mansions of thtjushin, or senior vassals, beginning with the three branch families of the Tokugawa. (At least, this was the case until the Great Meireki Fire.) Between the inner and outer moats, where Bancho is located, stood the residences of middle-ranking vassals, the hatamoto or direct retainers. In Yotsuya and Ichigaya, beyond the outer moat, the lower-ranking warrior groups had their residences. Thus, the residences of the three levels were arranged concentrically. Although military considerations no doubt played a part in the location of the middle- and lower-ranking warrior groups, the allotment of space for encampment was carried out in a hurry, and the need for the best possible geographical setting with the greatest ease of development certainly affected the choice. But even in the relatively flat upland districts west of the casde, the land surface was full of gende variations that brought pleasure to people traversing or setding the area. Located at the headland of the Kojimachi plateau, Bancho in particular enjoys a varied landscape formed by the convergence of two small valleys. Nevertheless, as in all casde-towns, the area from Ichibancho to Rokubancho was laid out according to a rigorous plan. Fortunately, the area around Bancho has been unaffected by periodic district revisions or street widening. The Edo-period neighborhood lines have remained untouched and, applying a ruler to a current city map, we can grasp in detail the nature and shape of Edo-period city planning. The rigor of planning becomes evident first in the size of the district blocks. The district divisions undertaken in the central low city in 1590 set the internal measurement of district blocks at a prescribed size of 60 ken (360 feet), the measurement used to divide Kyoto under the ancient jobo system.4 Measuring against a map, we find that in Bancho too, block divisions used the 60 ken prescribed as the measure for the short side of

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

4i

12. Mount Fuji as seen from Sanbancho Dori (ca. 1897). Shinsen Tokyo meisho zue (New selection of Tokyo landmarks, illustrated).

the block. How well known is it that the area around Bancho preserves the system of measurements used in Japanese city planning since time immemorial? It is more evident here than in the low city, where land adjustments have resulted in major changes of block size. The grid-shaped pattern of roads was also laid out to accommodate the lay of the land, with the long sides of the blocks, which deviate slighdy from an east-west axis, placed more or less parallel to the contour lines. Moreover, just as Kirishiki Shinjiro has noted with regard to the low city, neighborhood divisions in Bancho were planned to allow a view of the landmark Mount Fuji.5 In fact, a hill called Fujimizaka (Fuji-viewing hill) slopes gently down to the south-southwest from the rear of the present-day Hosei University campus. Mount Fuji should thus have been clearly visible from the point where the main street of Ura Yonbancho met the banks of the outer casde moat. And we know from the Shinsen Tokyo meisho zue (New selection of Tokyo landmarks, illustrated; see Fig. 12) that Mount Fuji was equally visible from the head of the main avenue leading through Sanbancho, which was parallel to the thoroughfare mentioned above. From the beginning, Japanese and European cities were planned and laid out along entirely different lines. European cities exhibit a centripetal structure by erecting tall structures with symbolic significance, such

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THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

14- Staircase behind Kudan Elementary School, as towers and domes, in the center of the city and enveloping the whole city in a protective outer wall. In contrast, Japanese cities show a strong centrifugal tendency: they define and locate themselves in relation to their broad natural setting and topography, in particular taking features that loom in the distance as landmarks. This tendency has also promoted diffusive expansion — that is, the phenomenon of urban sprawl.

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

43

In the environs of Bancho a quintessentially Edo-style city planning was undertaken: wanting to take maximum advantage of natural conditions, the neighborhoods were divided according to the microtopography of each locale, but always oriented toward the landmarks that emerged from the natural environment of the city as a whole. The map suggests that the block divisions were clearly defined by their surrounding roads. In actually walking about, we realize that here too an indispensable principle of Japanese town layout is operating: the two sides of a road are laid out in coordination with each other. Each neighborhood from Ichibancho through Rokubancho grew up on both sides of the roads that ran between them. Blocks that measured 60 ken (360 feet) on the short side were further divided down the middle into 30-ken (i8o-foot) sections, so that the areas facing each other across the road combined to form a single neighborhood. The block-splitting lines correspond to neighborhood boundaries; by using the cliffs as boundaries, variations in elevation demarcate local blocks (Fig. 13). The stairway along the cliff at the rear of Kudan Elementary School provides one example, creating a delightful atmosphere reminiscent of Montmartre in Paris (Fig. 14). Because the land framework did not change even in modern times, an observation of the area today allows us to follow the methods used to lay out hatamoto areas some four centuries ago. We still find details in contemporary Tokyo of the composition of urban space in Edo, details about which written documents can tell us nothing. Once we start to tease Edo out of Tokyo, to reconstruct its image, the lines of historical continuity between the two become vividly present. Before the Great Meireki Fire, Bancho was a district of simple residences, mainly grass-thatched houses with a rude gate on lots surrounded by bamboo groves. Afterward, it appears that the groves were cut down and the style of houses grew ever more grand. On the Tokyo city map of 1883-84 drawn up by the General Staff Bureau of Measurement, we find numerous hatamoto residences standing exactly as they did during the Edo period. By comparing them, we can make out their basic "lot-gate-building-garden" configuration. We learn that, as with the great daimyo establishments, massive row house gates stood on either side of the road; these districts had acquired a solemn atmosphere of their own. A study by Suzuki Kenji of deeds granting and confiscating warrior residences demonstrates that the scale of hatamoto residences in Edo ranged widely, depending on the office and stipend or on the period,

+4

T H E HIGH CITY: SURFACE A N D DEPTHS

!

I

s f V '¿'/i

I • = r " r "

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A

15. The typical configuration of a hatamoto residence.

from 1 0 0 tsubo (approximately 4 0 0 square yards) to more than 2 , 0 0 0 tsubo ( 8 , 0 0 0 square yards).6 Hatamoto stipends showed little variation in Bancho, however, which was laid out early in the Edo period according to a rigorous plan; late Edo illustrated maps and the General Staff map of 1883 indicate that the average residence size ranged from 300 to 900 tsubo (1,200-3,600 square yards). Even when adjusted to fit their smaller lots, hatamoto residences in Bancho incorporated almost every element of the larger residences into their own more compact establishments, taking on the air of minidaimyo mansions. Figure 15 shows the configuration of a standardized hatamoto residence as entered from the north. Passing through the row house gate, a formal approach of paved stone some 10 ken (60 feet) in length led up to the residence entrance. Although the amount of floor space varied, some larger houses had approximately 100 tsubo (400 square yards), with room arrangements resembling a simplified daimyo house. The garden was located further to the interior, taking up somewhere between a third and a half of the entire lot. Some of these were in the traditional Edo style, with artificial hills and ponds, and were so magnificent that they were celebrated in poetry: "Ah, the hundred bon-

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

45

sai of the Togawa mansion of Gobancho, the irises of the Yura in Ichibancho, the primrose at the Nakayama mansion in Omote Nibancho!"7 The gardens were laid out as often as possible on the south side of the main house. Figure 6, reconstructed from a late Tokugawa photograph, shows the residence of a shogunal retainer with an annual revenue of between 4,000 and 5,000 koku (approximately 18,000 to 22,500 bushels of tax rice). Its slightly affected appearance when viewed from the road, with the row house gate running along the planned lot division, can easily be imagined today by walking about the grounds of former middleranking warrior residences in Iga Ueno. With the Restoration, most of the Bancho residences, like their daimyo counterparts, reverted to imperial possession. Afterward, the grounds were converted to the production of raw silk and tea, which were major export goods at the time. When this project failed, the new government, in an attempt to prevent the waste of warrior residential land, abandoned its practice of pulling down the mansions. Instead it leased them out as official residences for senior bureaucrats, finally selling them off at a discount in 1871. Thus, Bancho, which seemed on its way to ruin, was revived as a neighborhood of homes for high officials and aristocrats and held on to its familiar solemn appearance of streets lined with row house gates. Writers such as Izumi Kyoka and Shimazaki TSson made their homes in Bancho, and it is even reported that a signboard advertising the literary journal Bungei shunjii was hung at the entrance to a former hatamoto mansion. It was also in Bancho that foreign embassies and schools, their buildings ornamented in Western style, made an notably early appearance (Fig. 16). Today more than half of the district has been destroyed by the earthquake and the war, and few of its original residences are still standing. Because of the high density of land use, lots with elongated interiors in the area have often been subdivided between back and front. But there are still splendid mansions standing inside gateways dating from the time of the original warrior residences, and the district has not lost its former character. The row house gates that once stood between the lot interior and the street, completely blocking the view of the one from the other, have all been pulled down. They have been replaced by low walls and gates, which allow at least some view of the interior of the lot and make the upper portion of the residence a part of the scene from the street. This is probably the greatest change in the district since the Meiji period. The basic impulse, however, remains at work today, of

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

+7

17. Changes in residential styles in Bancho.

clearly demarcating the private property of the lot from the public space of the street by placing a sturdy wall around the lot and a single gate at the entrance (Fig. 17). In this way, the character of Bancho is somewhat different from the open layout of such high-class "garden city"-style suburbs as Den'en Chofo and Seijo, which date from the Taisho period. Recently the vistas even of Bancho have undergone a transformation. Office buildings and condominiums are beginning to replace the characteristic low houses and spacious gardens — which are, after all, inefficient from the point of view of land use. However, even if the design and scale of the buildings change, the basic framework created in Ieyasu's time by the topography, roads, and block divisions will continue to hold the district together as it has for nearly four centuries. Not only Fujimizaka, but Hogenzaka, Hitokuchizaka, Obizaka: these and other hills re-

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THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

tain their place-names, as if to promise that only a certain amount of change will come to Bancho, with its straight roads and square-cut blocks. And the stone walls and venerable trees that line the hilly streets will continue to tell us of their part in Bancho's illustrious history. Thus, the urban structure of Edo carved into Bancho continues to be salient in the present and, like a prompter in a play, it will remain indispensable to the preservation of the city's identity as it moves into the future.

Warrior Group Residences Just as great mansions since the Meiji era inherited the image of small-scale daimyo or hatamoto residences, the homes we see everywhere in Tokyo today—independent homes with small yards — belong to the tradition of residences for low-ranking warriors. Residences like these occupied a large part of Edo's samurai districts, which accounted for 70 percent of the whole city of Edo. Not subject to drastic modernization like the sites of former daimyo residences, many of the original block divisions and lot boundaries of the warrior residence districts remain intact today in the general residential areas of central Tokyo. Thus, we can trace an important genealogy of housing for common people in such areas, stretching from the Edo period to the present. Although the low city's commoner houses—merchant houses on the main streets and row houses in the back alleys — are often discussed together with their inhabitants' native Edo spirit, the historical continuity of residential areas in the high city has, strangely enough, escaped our attention. But considering the importance for present-day Tokyoites of owning a house with a yard, however small, it is crucial to examine low-ranking warrior residences during the Edo period. Direct shogunal retainers were divided into two groups: hatamoto (bannermen), who had the privilege of an audience with the shogun, and gokenin (house retainers), who did not. The second group of retainers is usually referred to as "low-ranking warriors." These low-grade retainers were divided into service groups according to their positions in the shogunal government, such as okacbigumi (the shogun's foot guards), obangumi (casde guards), and onandqgumi (keepers of the shogun's personal stores). The members of each group lived in common housing units called kumiyashikt (group residences), built

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

49

on land borrowed from the shogunal government. At the center of each housing site ran a street, with each side divided neatly into some twenty or thirty lots of equal dimensions. The warrior group residence was thus a uniform, planned housing site — a miniature, in short, of Bancho's hatamoto district. Following the general pattern of Japanese urban construction, the central street played the important role of bringing individual lots on both sides together into one residential unit. In old maps from the Edo period, these low-ranking warrior districts are usually identified simply as group residences, with no reference to individual inhabitants' names. In today's terms, these group residences would correspond to military barracks, or civil service housing in which families live together; in principle, no commoners were allowed to enter them. Often equipped with wooden gates at both ends of the central street, these residences provided a closed, independent, and settled space for their inhabitants. Let us now turn to the layout of individual lots and houses as reconstructed from historical documents. We notice that wooden fences or hedges were used to mark off the boundary of each lot from its neighbors or from the street, and that a simple gate was added to each individual residence. The distance between the gate and the front entrance to the house was four or five ken (approximately 24-30 feet), and this space usually contained an approach road and front yard that served as indicators of the inhabitants' status. One example of such a residence is the group residence for foot guards in Fukagawa Motomachi, where each house consisted of a front entrance (3 tatami mats), two rooms (8 mats and 6 mats), a kitchen, and a toilet—a rough equivalent of a house for today's middle-class salaried workers.8 In fact, such a cityscape was everywhere around us until very recently; although most houses in middle-class neighborhoods today are twostory structures made of new building material and surrounded by concrete-block fences, the basic configuration of lots and rooms remains the same. Kawazoe Noboru has pointed out that, because the high city during the Edo period was still a rural area rich with vegetation and open spaces, even low-ranking warrior residences were provided with narrow but deep lots some 100-200 tsubo (approximately 400-800 square yards) in area.9 Such living conditions were far better than those of their twentieth-century counterparts. Since the house was small in relation to the lot (Fig. 18), most warriors could also make up for their rather meager salaries by raising vegetables and the like in the huge backyard.

50

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

JIiIIiIIIII 8 II M i i

O st

8 8 0 3 CM

i I I111111 M 11 r Central street lined with residences

18. Conceptual diagram of a group residence.

In what sort of locations do we find these group residences? What sort of planning methods did they employ? First of all, the date of construction for each of these group residences can be determined by tracing chronologically various maps produced during the Edo period. Details of late Edo group residences in particular can be obtained from a series of woodblock prints published in 1865. The actual size and shape of each residence can be surmised by comparing contemporary maps of Tokyo to the 1:5000 scale map of early Meiji Tokyo drawn up by the General Staff Bureau of Measurement (1883-8+), the first accurate map of Tokyo drawn to scale. The 1883-84 map is especially useful for our purposes since it depicts buildings, gates, fences, yards, and gardens left intact from the Edo period. From it, we can tell how each lot was arranged; we can also discern something of the contours of the cityscape. But if we wish to know more — if we wish to clarify what sort of places were preferred for the construction of group residences, or how each of these residences was planned and designed in response to the lay of the land in a particular locale—we need to set out on a walk in the Tokyo of today, observing and examining in detail actual sites with both the 1883-84 map and a present-day 1:2500 map in hand. The areas with the earliest development of group residences — namely, Yotsuya and Ichigaya to the west of the castle and Koishikawa

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

i

~

5i

tî

fej

k

19. Group residence modules.

to the north—were all on the outskirts of Bancho. Especially in the area west of the castle, with its three-tiered spatial hierarchy arranged concentrically and extending northwest from Edo Casde, group residences were placed outside the districts reserved for Tokugawa collaterals, hereditary vassals, and hatamoto residences, that is, in the areas farthest from the casde. These areas consisted mainly of level uplands with gentle slopes and were thus perfect for developing uniformly designed group residences. The special characteristic of these residences was their orderly construction according to set plans. This created a closed, comfortable living space for the inhabitants by separating the central street clearly from nearby highways and other small streets that had been produced spontaneously out of everyday necessity. Most often, each block of group residences was oblong (Fig. 19), with the long side running east-west and the short side generally measuring 40 ken (240 feet). A line dividing the short side down the middle subdivided the two lots adjacent in the back, each at a depth of 20 ken (120 feet). These dimensions, like those of the hatamoto district in Bancho, seem to have stemmed from the ancient jobo system, on which the commoner districts in Nihonbashi and Kyobashi were also patterned. Although each commoner district block was in the shape of 60 x 60 ken (360 x 360 feet) square, the lot depth measured 20 ken. Thus, it becomes clear that this ancient measuring system, based on a 60-ken standard, was applied to the whole of the casde-town of Edo, both in the low and and in the high cities. Let me present a summary of the modules of street planning employed for daimyo, hatamoto, low-grade warrior, and commoner resi-

52

THE HIGH CITY: SURPACE AND DEPTHS

dences. Although the base unit of 60 ken was used for all types of modules, different ratios (such as 1/3,1/2, and 2/3) were applied according to the social status of the residents. Each lot in a block of warrior group residence measured 7-10 ken (42-60 feet) in width and 20 ken in depth, almost identical to that of commoner housing. There was, however, a huge difference in land use; in commoner districts, numerous alleys provided room for backstreet shops and stores, whereas low-ranking warrior houses kept fairly large open spaces in the back. Thus, Edo was constructed according to the clearly defined concept of patterned planning typically seen in casde-towns. But a uniformly shaped grid pattern, like the one applied to the low-city flatlands, was not imposed mechanically on the undulating topography of the high city. The concept of city planning at work was richer and more flexible: each of the city's planned units or modules was first adjusted (although only slightly) in correspondence with the topography and then connected to other units or modules to form, in mosaic fashion, the whole of the high city. This kind of city planning was systematic only in the planning of details; otherwise, it responded flexibly to conditions in each location. Each housing unit in the high city was shaped by an intricate balance between a will-to-plan typical of casde-towns and a flexible response to the undulation of topography. The resulting urban environment was sustained both by organic suppleness and by a solid, high-quality framework. We see a radical contrast here with present-day techniques of urban planning or architectural design, which tend to impose uniformity no matter what the location, failing entirely to take specific conditions into consideration. Let us now turn to an early example of planned group residences, namely, the okachigumi (foot guards') residences on a southern slope of the Ichigaya uplands. When we ascend the Kagurazaka hill and turn west at the top, we come across this area, which is still a quiet residential district. Since antiquity, hills like this, with a southern exposure, have been preferred residential sites. The whole area was divided neatly into individual lots 9-10 ken (5460 feet) wide and 20 ken (120 feet) deep, the largest of all the group residence lots in Edo. We know from a late Edo drawing that a wooden gate was installed at the entrance, producing a closed, independent living environment. We know from the 1883-84 map that, even at this date, most of the warrior houses remained intact. The mid-Meiji map also shows us that, unlike the low city's commoner districts, where

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

53

houses were lined up right at the edge of the street, this warrior district had fewer houses and far more open spaces for yards and vegetable gardens. The individual houses stood 4-5 ken (24-30 feet) behind their gates, which were built simply facing the street. Unlike the lavish residences of high-ranking warriors, these group residences were completely indifferent to their directional orientation and stood almost symmetrically on both sides of the east-west street. In other words, whether the entrance to the lot faced north or south, each residence had exactly the same configuration of gate, front yard, and front entrance, and more or less the same size front yard. Part of the backyard was landscaped with a miniature hill or two, and the rest was used for growing vegetables. Since the late Edo period, some of these lots have been broken up into front and back portions; even so, the original land allotment has generally been kept intact, escaping radical subdivision and fractionalization. Even though the traditional buildings have all disappeared, the area, which has a few cheap apartment buildings, still boasts a good living environment—a rare thing, indeed, in the central part of Tokyo today. In recent years, some multi-story condominiums have appeared, but nothing gigantic, because the individual lots are just big enough to accommodate single homes. Thus even now, the whole district is a quiet, stable residential area. But most residential areas, with their roots in warrior residences, have recently experienced drastic environmental changes due mainly to exhorbitant inheritance taxes. It has become nearly impossible to maintain, generation after generation, a residence with a large lot in a good neighborhood, and it has also become an increasingly popular practice to subdivide a lot to make room for an apartment building, or to sell the whole lot to a real estate company, which constructs a huge condominium on the site. In the process, we have lost not only the historic vistas of particular places but also much of the greenery, our most important asset in keeping the urban environment livable and comfortable. Here, in fact, is where the real difficulty lies in tackling the high city's environmental problems. In saying all this, I do not mean to deny the spirit of our postwar land reform, but even so. . . Leaving the okachigumi group residences, we now move west into Nijukkicho, where we find in similarly arranged street blocks a few old houses that escaped damage in both the 1923 earthquake and World War II. Even more fortunate, in the course of our investigation we came upon the original floor plan of one of these old residences, which once belonged to a police sergeant. Figure 20 is a reproduction of this floor

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1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9

= = = = = = = =

storeroom toilet 2-mat r o o m bath 4-mat room 4.5-mat room 6-mat room 8 - n u t room 10-matroom

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

= = = = = = = =

sleeping alcove sink middle r o o m kitchen entrance small entry hall large entry hall gate kitchen

20. Floor plan of a low-ranking warrior residence.

plan supplemented by additional information obtained in a number o f conversations with the current owner, Mr. O f u j i , whose family b o u g h t the residence at the beginning o f the Meiji period. Originally, the area housed t w o groups o f ten mounted guards (hence the name Nijukkicho, or "district o f the twenty

mounted

guards"). This particular building, including even the miniature m o u n d in the garden, appears o n the 1883 General Staff map. A l t h o u g h Mr. O f u j i later sold the western half o f the lot, part o f the eastern side o f the building remained in its original form at the time o f our investigation.

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55

The building itself probably dates from the late Edo period, since at the time it was originally purchased, it had already been standing for a number of decades. A late Edo picture map published by Owariya indicates that a certain Yamamoto Kihei owned or lived on the property. The original lot measured 15-16 ken (90-96 feet) wide and 13-14 ken (78-84 feet) deep, for a total area of approximately 200 tsubo (800 square yards). Immediately to the right inside the gate were servants' quarters, and to the left in front of the main wing was a garden. The approach from the gate to the front entrance was 4-5 ken (24-30 feet) long. Following the general pattern of contemporary residential buildings, there were two front entrances, the larger visitors' entrance and the smaller family entrance. Immediately inside the visitors' entrance was a 4.5-mat alcove, followed by a 10-mat reception room on the left. Lined up behind the reception room toward the left were a kitchen and three rooms (6, 8, and 6 mats, respectively) with a southern exposure. In the back were a bathroom, a toilet, a storage area, and a well. The floor plan shows that the house was indeed laid out in the style of prestige-conscious warrior houses, where public spaces for visitors (quarters extending west from the large front entrance, facing the garden) and private everyday spaces for family members (quarters extending east into the back) were kept strictly separated. This particular house was much larger than typical low-ranking warrior residences. As the names on old maps indicate, the house was inhabited generation after generation by officers of the law, who were ranked the highest among gokenin, or house retainers. The lot itself was much shallower and wider, and the garden was placed on the street side of the lot to the south. This house was not a typical low-ranking warrior residence; nevertheless, it supplies important information about the appearance of low-grade warrior housing in general. Moreover, the floor plan offers convincing evidence that such residences became the prototype of the modern independent home with a yard. When we move toward the outer rim of the high city, we come across an interesting district on top of the Kobinata uplands. A guide map posted by the local community association suggests, astonishingly, that the whole area was laid out by design, not by accident. It was in this remote region to the north of the castle that the omakanaigumi (shogunal housekeepers') group residences were built in the early Edo period, even before Gokokuji Temple was constructed. According to a woodblock print from the Genroku period (1688-1704) called Edo zukan kotnoku (A picture oudine of Edo; 1689), most of the

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THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

area was still covered by fields; a stream ran along the valley near Otowachó, which later became the thriving temple-town of Gokokuji. But the part of the area where the group residences stood along six parallel eastwest streets already showed strong evidence of city planning. It is surprising indeed to find such a splendidly planned residential distria that is set along parallel roads on land as hilly as this (a fact I discovered by actually walking around it). The area was enlarged by annexing adjacent farmland. Built like military barracks, the residences were separated from the outside world by wooden gates, and even now we can detect the atmosphere of a closed, unified space. The organizational pattern of these group residences seems at first glance similar to that of the Kagurazaka residences discussed earlier; the actual scale, however, is quite different. Since the short side of a street block measured 15 ken (90 feet), the depth of each lot was only 7-8 ken (42-48 feet). The whole lot, therefore, was fairly small for this type of residence. Nevertheless, it covered 60-70 tsubo (240-280 square yards), an area that would excite the envy of any present-day Tokyoite. Even now the east-west streets are fairly long, but only about 10 feet wide. Because they have the appearance of private driveways rather than public roads, it is difficult for outsiders to intrude, allowing the area to provide its inhabitants with a more relaxed living space. From these uplands, we can go down the Nezumizaka hill (Fig. 21), with Tokyo Cathedral in Mejirodai in front, toward Otowachó in the west. Or we can go down the Yawatazaka hill to the south, taking in the view of the plateau that extends before us toward Kagurazaka. Walking patiently around the high city in this manner, we often come upon beautiful panoramas that suddenly unfold from the top of a plateau, giving us a delicious sense of freedom. At such places, we can not only confirm exactly where we are standing but also gain an opportunity to learn, directly and three-dimensionally, about the history of our location. Since antiquity, Tokyo has had a number of ingenious mechanisms built into its urban environment that make possible a dialogue between human beings and the spaces they inhabit. Fortunately, such cityscapes, tied deeply to the topography itself, still abound in present-day Tokyo. Recently, however, high-rise office and condominium buildings have begun to proliferate on the streets below, blocking our view completely and making it impossible for us to see at first hand the rich undulations of the topography. We desperately need administrative measures to preserve the urban beauty of Tokyo, especially these wonderful panoramic views from the uplands.

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

S7

21. Nezumizaka today.

But let us continue. Toward the mid- to late Edo period, the city of Edo became more and more crowded, and its limits pushed farther and farther from the center. At the same time, an increasing number of new warrior group residences were constructed in the southern Aoyama and Azabu areas. By this time, all the favorably situated land to the south of the castle, where topographical undulations are particularly noticeable, had been taken by daimyo mansions or middle- and low-ranking warrior residences, so that the new group residences had to be constructed in less desirable areas, such as steep slopes with a northern exposure,

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foothills, and valleys. The living quarters of the low-ranking warriors, separated from upland warrior spaces, became closer to commoner spaces in character. Often a part of existing warrior quarters or temple and shrine precincts was turned into a site for new group residences. Even in areas with such undesirable topographical conditions, we can discern a desire for planned urban development. Valley sites, moreover, had the potential to become closed, comfortable residential districts that could maintain their quiet atmosphere in the midst of modern urban development. Take, for example, Aoyama and Azabu, both of which conjure up the image of an exclusive residential area dotted with expensive houses and embassies or a fashionable gathering place for young people. Even in such places, there are numerous traces of history, and in the valleys behind the stores and expensive homes lie quiet, settled neighborhoods whose roots can be found in Edo's group residences. The Jonan district to the south of the casde boasts a hilly terrain and rich natural setting. It has long been considered one of Tokyo's most desirable residential areas, and even before the Great Meireki Fire numerous "middle" and "lower" suburban daimyo residences were built on its hilltops and along its upland ridges. Later, commoner quarters formed in the foothills and valleys. In the eighteenth century, group residences developed in the lowlands close to the commoner quarters in order to accommodate the increasing number of house retainers. As a typical example of such residences, we turn to the osakitajjumi (vanguards') residences in Azabu Gazenbomachi (present-day Minato Ward, Azabudai i-chome). These residences were built in the narrow, appendix-shaped valley that encroaches from east to west into the Azabu plateau. Neatly arranged on both sides of the central east-west road were regularly shaped lots measuring 20 ken (120 feet) in depth and 7-8 ken (42-48 feet) in width. Here, we can still see how a less-than-favorable situation in the midst of a valley surrounded by high plateaux was overcome to create a closed, comfortable residential area undisturbed by the outside world. Amid the rapid changes and multiplying elevated highways that affected the whole of Azabu, this deeply recessed area remains a quiet sanctuary for residents and historical memories alike. By now, the individual lots have become much smaller—perhaps an unavoidable phenomenon in a central area such as this. Although the fundamental framework of the Edo group residences is still discernible, new alleyways were constructed later on the eastern edges of the lots,10 and four

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

59

or five houses and two-story apartment buildings stand at their ends. Today we encounter more traditional alley spaces in this sort of "low city within the high city3' than in the low city itself, which has been subjected to a series of drastic street reallotments. While large government offices (such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and of Post and Telecommunications) occupy the sites of former daimyo residences on the surrounding hills, relatively small houses for ordinary people throng in the valleys in the back—this is, in short, the kind of urban composition we see everywhere in the high city today. If we walk about 200 yards from Roppongi Crossing toward Nogizaka, we come upon the Tenso Shrine on the left. Just to the south of this shrine lies another group of former vanguards' residences hidden away from the bustling main streets. Although the area today is littered with a disorderly mixture of old and new buildings — old independent houses, low-rent rooming houses, newer company houses, and condominiums—it nevertheless retains a quiet, comfortable living environment, thanks to the unified configuration of the original group residences. If such a quiet living environment bearing the legacy of Edo can survive in dizzy Roppongi, may we not find here clues to an alternative way of looking at Tokyo today? By the eighteenth century, as the problems and contradictions of the bakuban system came to the surface, the city of Edo found itself in the midst of endless development and sprawl, without the clear plans of the earlier stage. The warrior group residences from this period similarly show no trace of the planning that characterized the earlier residences; many were built on less-than-favorable sites — on one corner of a former warrior residence or temple site at the foot of a hill or in a valley, or worse, along with a valley road next to a high-city commoner district. No one guaranteed that a semi-private space would be set aside for warrior residences when a road with heavy public traffic ran through a district, and individual lots had to stand on both sides of the busy road. In some cases, group residence lots were lined up on one side of a public street, across from a commoner district. It was only too natural that some of these residences that were built in "shady" areas later deteriorated into slums. It is clear that, whereas the areas formerly occupied by well-planned warrior group residences built in the early Edo period maintain a good living environment, the haphazardly laid-out buildings of the late Edo period have not escaped decline. Nevertheless, numerous memories of these low-ranking warrior resi-

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dences are carved deep into the general residential districts within the circumference of the Yamanote train line. The layout of many of these districts is far more successful than what present-day urban planning could achieve. Walking around these pockets of serenity, we find ourselves not only tracing the ingenuity of Edo-period planning but also savoring the mature cityscape that is not visible in modern, massproduced, and monotonously uniform residential areas. But the sad reality is that, except for older people, most residents live in complete ignorance of this history. Some of the traditional techniques for building middle- and lowranking warrior residences seem to have been handed down to the suburban residential districts constructed all over the western part of Tokyo in the 1920s. We can see that one of our most important tasks in refiguring Tokyo's living environment must be to reconsider the role and value of warrior group residences. Recently, strong opinions concerning Tokyo's city administration have been voiced in many quarters, calling for the redevelopment of urban areas by constructing buildings of greater height in the interest of more efficient land use. Such proposals are more concerned with economic growth than treating the urban environment in an integral manner. One prime minister even proposed that every building within the Yamanote train line should have five stories or more. It is highly desirable for high-density, low-quality, low-rise housing to be replaced, in the interest of public safety and environmental improvement, by middle- to high-rise, multi-unit buildings. But it is the high city's good residential areas that have seen most of the recent construction of middle- to high-rise condominiums, not the low city's, which are continually losing a large part of their population as commoner houses are replaced by commercial buildings. And it is in the high city, as circumscribed by the Yamanote train line, that most residential districts rich in both vegetation and history still exist. At a time when many large lots on the hillside are being divided one after another and replaced by condominiums, realistic measures are urgendy needed that will strike a balance between environmental preservation and democratic land policy. We must first learn the historical and cultural background of individual urban districts to assess the quality of current living conditions. Only then can we place ourselves in the position of the inhabitants and begin to draw a blueprint suitable for the development of individual places.

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

6l

The Commoner Districts in the Valleys

Warriors were not the only figures of importance in highcity Edo. If we walk a little further along the uplands where the warrior residences were located, we soon come to a slope or cliff that forms the edge of the plateau. In the valley below lay an expanse of commoner houses that we might call "the low city within the high city." As we recall, the high city has a richly undulating topography, formed by various mid- to small-size waterways such as the Hirakawa (presentday Kanda) River, Tameike Lake, and the Furukawa River, which cut deep into the Musashino plateau. The peasant lands alongside were swallowed up by the sprawl of Edo and turned into commoner districts. Along these valley roads, then, lies the origin of "the low city within the high city." The development of these areas had to wait until the mid-Edo period. Earlier, there was nothing across the outer moat but the Musashino woodland and a few patches of unproductive farmland along the rivers. Edo's development as a city was accelerated by the Great Meireki Fire. The high city began to form a special urban space with a dual structure that corresponded to the topography: warrior districts grew up along ridge roads, and commoner quarters took shape in the valleys. In 1713 suburban areas including Koishikawa, Ushigome, Ichigaya, Yotsuya, Akasaka, and Azabu were formally incorporated into the city of Edo. Almost all of the valley setdements of the high city developed during this period. These settlements took shape spontaneously along the curving valley roads, making use of the narrow strips of land between the roads and the cliffs behind them. Most lots here, therefore, were less than 20 ken (120 feet) deep, whereas it was a general rule in the planned commoner quarters of the low city to set the depth of individual lots at exactly 20 ken (one-third of a 60-ken block division) and to make alleys between houses where row houses could be lined up. When there was enough room in the small high-city lots, the inhabitants did their best to create a space typical of the low-city configuration of merchant houses and alleyway row houses. Small retailers stood along the street selling produce and sundry goods, and in the row houses facing the alleys in the back lived gardeners, carpenters, and plasterers, who provided service to the mansions of the high city. The commoner houses embodied the city. Here we see a unity of

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occupation and dwelling, with business carried on at the front while the family made its home in the back. Unlike commoner houses in the Kansai, which often had a front-to-back yard, in Edo alleys were created alongside a house so that traffic could make its way to the back. This was indeed a suitable arrangement for the great city of Edo, which had to accommodate a constant influx of artisans and laborers from the nearby villages, who lived in the back as row house tenants. Alleyways like these provided the stage on which the common people of Edo and Tokyo played out their lives. The inhabitants of cramped tenement houses had no yard space of their own and therefore had to turn to the backstreet for all their open space. It was not only a front yard for potted plants and a place for children to play, but also an indispensable makeshift kitchen for housewives to make fires for cooking. A common toilet and well were also found there. In the furthest recesses of the alley the Inari fox god was enshrined, providing a spiritual bond for the denizens of the alleyway. Because the alley was directly linked to people's everyday lives, kitchens were usually placed facing the alley. With the loss of its daimyo and hatamoto population as a result of the Meiji Restoration, the high city faced a period of devastation and exhaustion. But before long, the princes of the blood, aristocrats, and capitalists who represented the new powers of Meiji moved in to establish their own mansions on some of the sites of former warrior residences. Elsewhere, modern facilities — government offices, schools, and embassies—were erected. As streetcar lines developed during the 1910s and 1920s and residential land expanded into the hills, "the low city within the high city" regained its vigor. The structure of back-alley row houses remained more or less the same during the Meiji period as it had been earlier, but the Taisho period showed clear signs of the modernization to come. First, with the addition of a second story, the number of rooms increased. With the laying of city water and gas lines, kitchens lost their functional connection to the alley and were moved around to the rear of the house. Instead, an alcove for receiving guests was installed in the front. Thus, the row houses of ordinary people created increasingly livable environments as modernization progressed. Among the valley settlements, an example may be seen today in the neighborhood of Kikuzaka in Hongo (Fig. 22). Although the high city itself has been completely urbanized, its hilly topography is unchangeable. With the construction of elevated highways and the proliferation of high-rises, the appearance of most of the main ridge roads and streets along the riverbanks has been completely

6+

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

transformed. But with one step into the valleys, we can still see towns with venerable origins thriving as shopping districts closely linked to the lives of local people. Azabu Juban is a good example. The many condominiums being built on the surrounding hills seem to have brought about an increase in the number of shoppers who come to the district. The mutually supportive relationship between the upland and the valley has remained the same despite all the modernization that has gone on in the city. The stores here have preserved their original lot divisions, and the area continues to thrive as a shopping resource for the entire community. In recent years, moreover, the idea has caught on of revitalizing this sort of shopping district, not by large-scale redevelopment but by making the most of the existing urban structure by renovation and improvement. Such a view of urban planning is based on the distinct history and cultural legacy of each locale and should be encouraged.

Conclusion Walking and reading the streets of Tokyo with old maps in hand makes it possible for anyone to grasp the fact that ours is a superb city endowed with a cityscape ingeniously created in accord with natural and topographical conditions. Examining the city in this way, we are astonished at the overwhelming number of instances where the urban environment we now enjoy in Tokyo is a legacy of the original urban planning of Edo. And we also come to understand that the city itself faces a crisis because we, the citizens of present-day Tokyo, are discarding this legacy in the name of functionality and efficiency. We are still obsessed by the illusion of modern city planning. But if there had been no castle-town of Edo on the site of Tokyo and if we had had to build a modern city from a tabula rasa, we would have produced a desiccated city devoid of any flavor or expression, one that lacked coherence and failed to carry out even elementary functions. It was only by inheriting the solid framework of Edo, as well as the Edo people's ingenious sense of land use—of putting things where they belong — that Tokyo, even with its corpulent body, has managed to uphold the quality of its environment and survive to the present. Is it not incumbent on us, before we leap into any further large-scale development using modern technology, to accept this fact with humility?

THE HIGH CITY: SURFACE AND DEPTHS

6J

By reading the city, we may be able to bring home to ourselves the historical structure of Edo, which we tend to think of as unrelated to present-day Tokyo. Even neighborhoods with which we are familiar take on a fresh appearance wherever we look. Although old buildings may no longer be standing, annual growth rings are deeply cut into — and memories are preserved throughout—the city of Tokyo. Gradually we realize that every district is rich in individual expression tied to the historic urban structure and to the local pattern of land use. Are there not genuine possibilities here for the enhancement of Tokyo's identity? It is beyond doubt that the more Tokyo is internationalized, the more we will value this rarest of urban structures in which new and old elements coexist and interact between its surfaces and its depths. Until now we have tended to be dazzled and unduly influenced by the ceaseless movement of the city. Within the chaos, most people have forgotten who lives where and how; they have lost affection for their own locality. Beautiful cityscapes and wonderful living environments must be fostered slowly and steadily under the gaze of citizens who love and take pride in their land. Now is the time for us to sit down and, using a historical perspective, reacquaint ourselves with the ways our own towns and regions took shape. Until we do, we will not be able to speak concretely of creating a city that truly exists for those who live in it. I urge you, then, to take up an old map and walk around Tokyo's high city, so rich in historical resources.

C H A P T E R TWO

The Cosmology of a City of Water

It is all but forgotten today that Tokyo's low city was once a city equal to Venice in its charms. The beauty of the water's edge was a favorite subject for woodblock print artists beginning with Hiroshige. Tokyo's waterfront boasted an urban space that is unimaginable today, with shores and banks fortified by high protective walls and elevated highways running above the surface of the water. Even though it changed as the city modernized, this waterfront offered some of the city's most beautiful vistas right up to the Tokyo Olympics of 1964. But over the last two decades, Tokyo's unused canals have become no more than white elephants. They have come to belong to the "wrong" side of the city, removed from human view and treated as shabby "parts of shame" left behind in the wake of modernization. This situation was clearly produced by urban policies that placed the greatest value on economy and function; nevertheless, it is one that the sensibilities and values of our citizenry tolerate. Tokyo as a whole has been transformed into a "city of land" since the Meiji period, and the living space on the landed side of the low city has drastically changed its appearance. Low-city districts have undergone large-scale urban renovations that redrew ward boundaries and adjusted lot demarcations. Because this reconstruction put a premium on traffic flow and fire prevention, the tenement-lined backstreets that provided the setting for traditional comic figures have all but vanished from the center of the city. When we walk the streets of the low city today, it is hard to find a 66

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dear continuity in the urban structure from Edo to Tokyo. Working with documents and maps, we can reproduce fragments of the world of low-city Edo. It is difficult, however, to apply the method we used in the high city: that of superimposing the urban structure of Edo on a present-day representation of the city and then, with features such as roads, blocks, lots, and building arrangements in mind, actually walking the streets and turning our senses loose. Can it be that clues to reading the city are no longer to be found in low-city Tokyo? No! It is too early to give up! Although the structure of the "city of water" appears to be totally lost, it has actually been transmitted to the most fundamental sections of Tokyo. Many canals were filled in during the period of rapid economic growth, and many areas were relegated to permanent shadow beneath the elevated highways. But even now, if we row out into the remaining waters, we find that we can travel on an extensive network of waterways that run throughout the low city. With the help of a boatman of our acquaintance, we frequendy enjoy boating parties on Tokyo's waterways. Setting out in a little goby-fishing boat from the nostalgia-laden docks at Tsukudajima, we ply the Sumida River. We circle the network of waterways in Koto Ward and set out along the Kandagawa River, the outer moat, Nihonbashi River, and finally Kamejima River, heading toward the very center of Tokyo. This kind of excursion is one of the best forms of amusement that Tokyo has to offer, and the network of waterways that makes it possible has remained virtually unchanged since the Edo period. If we give our imagination its way for just a moment as we observe the city from the water, we can discern how, at least until the war, the "watery capital" took its shape. When viewed from the water, the whole city appears strikingly new. In order to read back through the accumulated layers of history— through the Taisho, Meiji, and Edo eras —while exploring the urban spaces of Tokyo today, a water route proves far more effective and engrossing than travel by land. The business of the low city grew along axes formed by the canals and rivers. The economic, social, and cultural life of the city developed in close connection with the water. It was not only that water served an important transportation function; in addition, the bustling squares and landmarks that attracted crowds of people coexisted with the city's waterways — most of the theaters of Edo and early Meiji Tokyo, for example, were located near water. Thus, the energies of the city were overwhelmingly concentrated at the water's edge. And the waterfront played

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a major role in creating modern urban vistas. Indeed, water provides a clear basis for the story of how low-city space was constructed in Edo and Tokyo. The environmental damage that occurred during the period of rapid economic growth has deepened our awareness of the importance of water—and green space—for the city. "Water" and "Green Space" have become indispensable rallying cries for the urban plans drawn up by municipal governments. But there is always a danger that such concerns may simply be displaced into techniques of urban design and landscaping: the truth is that water and green space are intimately connected with human life at a far deeper level. In the West, an insistence on water and green space has been a feature of city planning since the beginning of this century. In Japan, however, such ideas have come to attract attention only recently, in the context of concerns over environmental destruction. But in constrast to the West, Japanese cities have from the outset contained—or been in close proximity to—water and greenery (or woodland). The development of Edo, one of the few cities in the world of the seventeenth century with a population of more than a million, is quite inconceivable without water and green space. We need, then, to take up the question of water and green space in a context separate from that of modern city planning in the West; that is, we also need to be aware that these elements were intimately linked to the formation of "place" as a topos in Japanese cities and regions, and that they were deeply related to human life and culture there. Let us use the example of low-city Tokyo. I propose to read the formation of the low city using "water" as a keyword and thereby rediscover the many meanings of water in the urban context.

The Edo Water System From the beginning, Tokyo was blessed with conditions favorable to the creation of a splendid urban environment and cityscape. Tokyo's predecessor, Edo, was a castle-town built in a location famous for its beauty, at the tip of the Musashino plateau overlooking Tokyo bay. The commoner districts of the low city formed a "city of water" built along the canals on reclaimed delta land, while the warrior areas of the high city created a "city of greenery" among the rich hills and

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23. An aerial view of Edo in the mid-nineteenth century. Edo ezu (Edo drawings). Tokyo Toritsu Chuo Toshokan.

valleys. This was how Tokyo, a city of countless bridges and hills, came into being (Fig. 23). Particularly among the commoner population, Edo was seen as an affluent city of water. As proof, we need only to look at the many bird'seye-view maps of the city that appeared from the late Tokugawa through the Meiji periods. They are all drawn based on the same plan and use the same images: they look out to the west from the heights above the Koto district, capturing faithfully and with feeling the watery capital of the low city that was the living space of Edo's commoner classes. Moving from right to left across the pictures, the Sumida River nurtures the low city; it flows along until it empties into Tokyo Bay. Along the banks of the Sumida, Edo's "literary space" also appears, with ties to commoner culture, life, and thought. Finally, commoner districts are drawn along its edge, including waterfronts packed with fish markets and warehouses that provide a palpable sense of their bustling commerce. At the center of these maps stands Edo Castle and, extending behind it, the verdant warrior districts of the high city. But since this "political

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THE COSMOLOGY OF A CITY OF WATER

space" was only a vague reality to Edo's citizenry, it is drawn without much force. On the other hand, Mount Fuji stands as a focal point in the background. Although physically distant, it has been pulled markedly closer; it is drawn with bold exaggeration in order to dramatize its role as a symbol of the city. In this way, Edo — a beautiful city integrated into the great natural world — is vividly described from the viewpoint of the low-city commoners as constituting a single, coherent universe. Low-city Tokyo was not, however, built in a totally unaltered natural setting. Its construction advanced step by step with the refashioning of nature, as engineering projects were instituted one after another at the beginning of the Tokugawa period; it is, therefore, a creation of the human will. But its constructions displayed none of the extravagance of today's technology. Instead, the urban arrangement that took shape paid close attention to detail, followed the original topography, and coexisted with nature. Between the Musashino plateau and the Shimofusa plateau (toward Chiba), the water system of the Tonegawa and the Arakawa rivers, which flow into Tokyo Bay, formed a floodplain. This provided the setting for the development of the low city. In particular, part of Edo harbor was reclaimed — the area where minor rivers like the former Shakujii and Hirakawa flowed into the bay, along with the Hibiya inlet area; a planned network of canals and waterways was dug and district divisions were established to form the center of the watery capital. This network performed many functions besides transportation. For example, it drained water from city streets after major rainfalls and stored a portion of increased flows into the Sumida; it also provided a source of water for domestic and light industries, and a route for dumping the waste water used by such establishments. It acted, in short, as an ecological system (Fig. 24). To spread the low city over a wide area, a number of large-scale civil engineering projects were instituted, such as the restoration of rivers. The main artery of the Edo water system, the Nihonbashi River, does not follow its natural course but rather is thought to have been created when Ota Dotan (1432-86) rechanneled the former Hirakawa River in the direction of Nihonbashi. And during the Edo period when Tokugawa Ieyasu was preparing to refit Edo Casde, he ordered the digging of Dosanbori Canal as a waterway that would allow salt and other provisions to be transported to the area direcdy beneath the casde. Finally, in order to protect the reclaimed land of the Nihonbashi district from floods, the Kandagawa River channel was opened and the southwest-

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24. Present-day Ochanimizu as seen from the water.

flowing Hirakawa and Koishikawa rivers were diverted east to empty into the Sumida. 1 A m o n g all the waterways in Tokyo, the one created by carving out the Kandayama hillside is furthest below ground level. Even today when we pass through this area—around Ochanomizu—by boat, we feel the high, green-covered embankment pressing down on us from both sides, as if we had entered a good-sized gorge. So refreshingly cool is this area during the summer that we almost forget that we are near the heart of Tokyo. Engineering of this kind put an end to floods on the lower reaches of the Hirakawa River and prevented the submersion of the port of Edo. It also put the earth taken from the Kandayama hillside to use in reclaiming the Hibiya inlet and creating city streets through the area. We can see that, although a number of natural rivers in the Edo lowlands were diverted, the result was an organic network of canals fundamentally in accord with the original topography. And the moats that were dug around the outer casrie works also obeyed the demands of the Musashino highlands' varied topograpy, with their interlaced hills and valleys. Human effort was added to nature. The serene appearance of

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this space composed of water, embankments, and greenery became a significant window of retreat from the surrounding city. And modern Tokyo inherited the cityscapes around the inner moat of the imperial palace virtually without change. The development of Edo combined the unique character of Tokugawa casde-town planning and the timehonored practice of reading natural conditions in urban settings. From this combination emerged the beauty of the city, with its clear sense of order and its richness of variety.

Canals as a Means of Transportation

To read the development of the low city in terms of water, we need to look first at the city's canals as a means of transportation (Fig. 2$). Edo's low-city canals and waterways were the arteries that supported the economy of this great consuming city. In a world without railroads or trucks, shipping and distribution during the Tokugawa period relied almost entirely on water transport. The low city was the site of commoner economic activity, having developed initially during the medieval period because of the trade and commerce in and around the port of Edo. Vessels from all over the country dropped anchor out at sea near Shinagawa or Teppozu, where their cargo was transferred to barges; these made their way along the canals to waterfront markets, where their goods were unloaded. An Edo city map (Bushii Toshima-gdri Edo no shozu ; A property map of Edo, Toshima County, Musashino Province) drawn during the Kan'ei period (1624-44) shows clearly the network of canals, with piers arranged like teeth on a comb, that extended from Kyobashi to Nihonbashi along the east shore of the bay. Known for its lumber trade, in the early Edo period this area also boasted many busding fish markets, and boats took Hatchobori Canal into the city's interior. Later the piers were torn down, the area facing Tokyo Bay was gradually reclaimed, and the outer waterfront was developed as a base for water transportation. In the neighborhoods of Kobuna-cho and Koami-cho, near Honcho to the north of the Nihonbashi River, the course of the former Shakujii River was preserved and made into an entry canal; from early on, the area became an important site of commercial activity. What did the waterfront areas look like? According to the Edo zu bydbu (Folding screen-map of Edo; Fig. 26), they were in rudimentary

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25. Edo's canals and waterfront in the middle of the nineteenth century. Suzuki Masao, Edo no kawa, Tokyo no kawa (Rivers of Edo, rivers of Tokyo). N H K Books. condition, with no stonework along the water's edge, but they served nonetheless as wharves. Scenes are common in which unloaded goods are being hauled up onto the banks. But with the expansion o f commercial activity in E d o and the establishment of its distribution system, the waterbanks improved and began to take on a distinctive configuration. They were shored up with stoneworks, and warehouses were built alongside. Small wooden piers jutted out from the side of warehouses facing the water, allowing goods to be unloaded direcdy; many boats could be accommodated at one time in this way.

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26. A view of the Nihonbashi River. Edo zu byobu (Folding screen-map of Edo). Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Hakubutsukan.

With its densely packed wooden buildings, Edo was the scene o f frequent fires. For this reason, warehouses—particularly those built o f mortar—assumed great importance. Waterfront warehouses were central to the distribution system, and consequently, districts facing the water were granted permission by the shogunal government to build storehouses on vacant areas o f the shoreline. These were not only convenient for storing goods unloaded from boats, but also useful in preventing the spread o f fires. This is thought to be the reason for the encouragement given to building mortar warehouses after the Great Meireki Fire. 2 Before long, warehouses lined the waterfront, beginning with Koami-

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27. The river at Ise-cho. Edo meisho zue (Edo's landmarks, illustrated).

cho, Kobuna-cho, and Ise-cho and extending over the entire central commoner district. The sight of boats plying their way between whitewalled warehouses with gabled roofs that lined both sides of the canal soon became a familiar one (Fig. 27). From the beginning, waterfront areas were public lands administered by the shogunate, and owners of land there were allowed to extend their property for business use. Because such locations had direct ties to water transportation, they were taxed at a higher than normal rate; as a matter of course, wholesale distributers began to concentrate in these areas, and one after another, warehouses came to line the waterfront.3 Thus, at the hub of low-city Edo, the development of waterfront areas gave first priority to commerce and the distribution of goods. Warehouses became separate from shops and residences. Along the waterfront, which largely determines the cityscape, a unique spatial configuration took shape, formed by the lines of warehouses at the city's center. Even in this early period, a quintessential^ Japanese mode of urban development was already in evidence, one that placed great emphasis on economic activity. But unlike today, when the city simply houses economic animals, this urban space, though it gave primacy to economics, also reflected a sense of aesthetics. We see evidence of this attitude in

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the urban beauty of the rhythmical, linked warehouses with their white plaster and black tiled walls. The head of a Swiss diplomatic mission during the late Tokugawa period, however, saw things differently. Doubtless comparing Edo to Venice and Amsterdam, with their elegant waterfront residences, Aimé Humbert made the following unfavorable observations: "If the original city plans were not buried beneath endless lines of warehouses, the view from the many temporary bridges would undoubtedly afford a more pleasing vista."4 It is clear from artworks such as Hiroshige's Koami-chô and Yoroi no watashi (A ferry full of armor) and Hokusai's Fugaku sanjûrokkei Edo Nihonbashi (Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji: Nihonbashi in Edo) that the view of the warehouses from the water was a popular subject, and that people of the time had conventionalized the beauty of this kind of landscape. The spatial structure of Edo's waterfront with its merchants' houses, public thoroughfares, warehouses, and canals — all visible from land facing the water—was carried over into the Meiji period; many areas retained this form until the 1923 earthquake. Many canalside areas that had originally been public property were sold to private buyers to gain revenue for post-earthquake reconstruction. After 1923, these mortar warehouses no longer conveyed a feeling of Edo to the modern city. But water transport was still brisk, concrete warehouses were still built along the canals, and a number of the old brick or stone warehouses remained standing. Walking around Irifune-chô or Kobuna-chô even today, we can get a sense of the atmosphere of the old waterfront district. Waterfront vistas also provide an unembellished expression of the commerical potential of a given area. For example, as we move away from the center of this commoner district, with its lines of wholesale establishments, the number of warehouses along the water's edge decreases, and the canal and shore areas converge, opening into a broad waterfront space. In places of particular beauty, we may even come upon an open-fronted teahouse. Or consider, further on, the Onagigawa River, which forms the trunk line in the interregional distribution network linking central Tokyo to Chiba. Pictures from the late 1890s show a wide-open waterfront space, with a straight shoreline road unbroken by any buildings except the waiting area for the local water-bus. Finally, as we pass out of the low city into the suburbs, we find that the water's edge is no longer shored up by stone walls, but rather by wooden posts or a natural embankment; many locations are also lined with cherry trees. Thus, the areas along the canals and rivers exhibit conventional-

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ized ways of producing waterscapes, which are in full accord with their function and mode of use. Waterfront vistas truly provide a barometer for measuring the urban activities, from trade and distribution to recreation, proper to each area. If we go out onto Tokyo's canals by boat, it is still possible to see a great many local workshops with ties to water transportation: not only warehouses but lumber dealers, stone masons, and printers, among others. Turning west off the Sumida and heading up the Kandagawa River, just ahead of Hijiribashi Bridge in Ochanomizu, we see on the right a series of four- orfive-storywooden structures built along the cliff: these are stonecutting works. With their waterfront signs advertising marble and other stones, they call to mind an earlier time when water transport along the Kandagawa was brisker than today. A number of lumber dealers continue to do business, not only in the famous Fukagawa neighborhood of Kiba but also in an area along the Furukawa River that runs between the hills separating Azabu and Mita. And recendy, a lumber wholesaler refused to leave his property in protest against the filling and redevelopment of Iidabori Canal in the upper reaches of the Kandagawa River. Further upstream along these rivers are numerous printing and other workshops. It was natural that industry in Edo and Tokyo developed along the city's waterways, as spatial experiences such as these bring vividly home. We cannot begin to count the venerable establishments with ties to canals and rivers that continued to operate after donning modern dress. In addition, a great many places without direct ties to water transportation have established themselves in a particular location and stayed in business there. A classic example is the offices and Kanto facilities of soy manufacturers such as Kikkoman, Higeta, and Takara, all located in Koami-cho. Soy sauce produced in places like Noda and Choshi was transported to docks in Edo by warehousers' ships. From Noda, barges loaded with soy sauce made their way down the Edogawa River, reaching Shin Kawaguchi in some five hours. Then, taking advantage of the flood tide, they proceeded through Funabori Canal and along the Onagigawa River to the Sumida at Mannenbashi Bridge, then from Nakasu and Hakozaki to their final destination, the docks at Koami-cho. This leg of the journey took approximately three hours.5 The urban structure of meaning is surprisingly persistent. The City Air Terminal at Hakozaki —the gateway to Tokyo from Narita International Airport— was built facing the Gyotoku market, which was one of the most important in Edo, and adjacent to Koami-cho. Even today a similar route brings people from Chiba to Tokyo.

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Waterfronts and Markets In looking at waterfronts, it is the location of markets that seems to me most worthy of attention. The markets that sustained the great city of Edo were also established in association with water transportation. The chartered market for produce during the Tokugawa period was the Kanda Produce Market, which made use of water transport along the Kandagawa River. Located in the vicinity of Sujikaibashi Bridge, the entrance to Edo for traffic along the Nakasendo, Oshu, and Nikko highways, this market served as the nexus of both land and water transport for the entire area. After the Meiji period, it remained in operation in the Kanda as the Central Market, but it was moved to a new location in Akihabara, just to the north, after the 1923 earthquake. Fish markets also developed very early along the convenient waterfront at Nihonbashi Bridge. The main impetus was provided by fishermen, who were brought to Edo from Settsu Province, in western Japan, by Tokugawa Ieyasu and began operations at Tsukudajima. At first, fish and shellfish were sold from boards laid out facing the street; gradually operations were moved to permanent shops. Hiroshige's Nihonbashi yukibare (Nihonbashi on a clear winter day; Fig. 28) depicts the tightly packed line of shops in thefishmarket along the Nihonbashi waterfront. One of the great attractions of Nihonbashi Bridge was its view of the thriving market and the bustling shops surrounding it. The bridge had long been the center of Edo and was thick with foot traffic; the neighborhood at its base served the citizens of Edo as a kind of public square. Most city thoroughfares that ran along the base of a bridge later became sites of popular amusement. In contrast, Nihonbashi Bridge provided a location where the shogunal government and the city's residents could communicate their wishes to each other; there they could engage in a dialogue without having to appear in each other's presence. The character of this public square was quite different from those of medieval Europe, which functioned as symbols of municipal self-government. As early as 1606 — two years after the bridge was completed—official notice boards appeared on the west side of the south end of the bridge. There, official decrees and instructions to the populace were posted. And from time to time, the reverse occurred, as common people posted satirical verses that sharply criticized the government. Meanwhile, the east side provided a place where criminals were publicly admonished and exposed.

28. Hiroshige, Nihonbashiyukibare (Nihonbashi on a clear winter day).

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Here the small Piazza San Marco of Venice springs to mind, the gateway to the watery capital of that seafaring city-state, where public hangings were carried out. When a rope was tied between twin marble columns, the site became a place of execution. To this day, genuine Venetians, fearful of the place, avoid walking between these two columns. In both cases — in the republican city and the shogunal capital — the apparatus of authority was incorporated into the central square so that the population could be kept under control within the stable routine of everyday life. The neighborhood around Nihonbashi Bridge was filled with the energy of its inhabitants. I once had the opportunity to talk with Ito Kikuzo, an illustrator active since the prewar era, about the neighborhood of the Nihonbashi fish market, which was in operation until the 1923 earthquake. Ito's family ran a teahouse where retail merchants from all over the country who had laid in stock at the market could relax while they waited for their boat home. People who worked in and around the market made their homes in this neighborhood; for many, work and home were in the same location, and the area brimmed with activity day and night. According to Ito, hardly a day passed without a festival somewhere; night after night customers crowded into the Ginza's open-air stalls, which seem to have their origin in religious festivals. When Mitsukoshi (located just to the rear of this district) held the grand opening of its newly refurbished department store, it thoughtfully distributed souvemtfUroshiki (wrapping cloths) to neighborhood residents and even gave them preferential invitations to the ceremony. In those days Nihonbashi, with its blend of low-city nostalgia and youthful Meiji vigor, truly possessed a charm all its own. To discover the urban activities that developed in and around the waterfront markets, there is no better place to begin than in the district next to Nihonbashi, at the foot of Edobashi Bridge (Fig. 29). After the Great Meireki Fire, a wide avenue (hirokdji) was laid out here as a firebreak. A number of books discuss the markets that grew up along this avenue. Okuma Yoshikuni has written an introductory volume, using village headmens' notes and the Kyoka Edo meisho zue (Edo's landmarks, in illustrations and verse) as well as drawings from the years around 1816. His work offers a wealth of detail on the subject.6 In addition, the work of Yoshiwara Ken'ichiro clarifies the use that local commoners made of the avenue and its environs.7 Large docks were constructed along the water's edge, beginning with

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29. Edobashi Hirokòji. Edo meishozue (Edo's landmarks, illustrated). the Kisarazu docks that handled rice and passengers from Kisarazu on the Boso Peninsula. Large merchant establishments and as many as 108 retail stalls with ties to the central market packed the area around the avenue. Barbershops and teahouses catered to the large numbers of people in the area. The avenue, located at the edge of the broad canal and filled with foot traffic moving on and off the bridge, naturally took on the bustle of a market, gradually acquiring the character of a popular amusement center as well. Archery ranges and a variety hall lined the secluded alleyway running off the broad avenue. Each occupied a tent surrounded by marsh-reed screens, where people gathered to be entertained. (In Edo archery ranges were often set up within the precincts of famous temples and shrines or along great avenues. Many of them employed beautiful young women to retrieve the arrows; they operated essentially as unlicensed brothels.) Further along the alley stood a shrine to the Inari fox god; by all accounts the First Horse Day (Hatsuuma) festival here was a lively occasion. The atmosphere of the raucous amusement center along Edobashi Hirokoji is expressed in a satirical poem poking fun at country folk just off the boat from Kisarazu: "They don't get seasick / on the

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boat from Kisarazu / but they find their eyes swimming / at the sight of the crowds at Edobashi." Thus, the areas of Nihonbashi and Edobashi developed into public squares at the base of the great bridges over the Nihonbashi River. They continued into modern times: particularly in the early years of the twentieth century, they presented viewers with splendid cityscapes composed of modern buildings set against the great bridges. Although today the cumbrous structure of the highway looms overhead, a boat journey along the water below recalls the dynamic beauty of the vista created by linking the water and the surrounding land. In fact, present-day Edobashi Bridge, which was erected as part of the earthquake-recovery program, was moved slighdy to the west in order to line up with the newly constructed Showa Dori thoroughfare.

Landmarks Along the Water Let us now change our focus and look at the way Edo's landmarks were distributed within the city's topography and urban structure. Here, the research of Higuchi Tadahiko provides an important key. Higuchi suggests that the familiar landmarks of Edo and Tokyo were linked to the city's topography because they arose in either hill or water neighborhoods. In the high city, they appeared at the tip of the Musashino plateau or in its deep recesses. In the low city, they took shape along the shores of Tokyo Bay or the banks of the Sumida River. These landmarks developed in connection with temples and shrines, which tended to remain in these locations.8 H o w does this notion fit the actual structure of temple and shrine sites? In the Edo high city, temples and shrines were located at the edges of hills, set against a background of luxuriant woodland. An example is Hachiman Shrine in Ichigaya (Fig. 30). A river runs below, and commoner houses line the streets in front of the shrine. Climbing the approach road that rises from among the houses, we enter the shrine precincts atop a small hill. The scene offers a perfect example of a spatial structure characterized by "inferiority."9 The illustration shows a tent theater, bedecked with streamers, operating within the sacred precincts. Religious spaces, set amid natural abundance, naturally became favorite sites for enjoying the four seasons; because of their festivals and makeshift theaters, they also served as pub-

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30. Ichigaya Hachiman Shrine. Edomeishozue (Edo's landmarks, illustrated). lie squares where people could relax. Thus, the commoner districts beneath shrines like this one tended to develop into busding centers of popular amusement and commerce. Today, the once-placid environs of the Ichigaya Hachiman Shrine have been totally transformed. The palace moat remains almost unchanged, but traffic is extremely heavy in front, where Yasukuni Dori meets Sotobori Dori. The original shrine-front district is now crammed full of Western-style office buildings. Still, if we make our way between them into the backstreets, we find that the spatial structure has not changed. As in Edo, we see a combination of approaches to the shrine: a steep, straight "Man's Hill" (otokozaka) stairway and a gendy curving "Woman's Hill" (onnazaka). In the midst of the traffic and building noise, quiedy perduring sacred space such as this provides an invaluable key to the original images of Edo. In the low city, all of the major temples and shrines were erected on sites that jutted toward the water's edge, with the broad expanse of water providing a backdrop. In every instance, they were set apart from the profane space of the city streets, arranged so that they drew passersby along the approach road into the serenity of sacred space at the deep interior (see, for example, Fig. 31). Even inland shrines on level

3i. Hiroshige, Shinttgawa susaki (Sandspit at Shinagawa).

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land far from the sea often projected out over a large pond (as with Benten Shrine at Shinobazu Pond in Ueno) or had a pond in the background (like Nezu Gongen Shrine). In either case, the sites were oriented toward water. The Fukagawa district in Koto Ward affords two vivid illustrations of this concept of urban space. First, Tomioka Hachiman Shrine. Located in an area reclaimed in the late Tokugawa period, this shrine was built in customary fashion (although it is difficult to see this today) with its back to the sea. Records tell us that it was designed in the 1620s as the guardian shrine of a village that had developed on reclaimed land east of the mouth of the Sumida River. According to a map drawn during the 1680s, much of the district that would later be considered typical of Fukagawa was still under water at the Sumida's southern inlet into the bay. But Tomioka Hachiman Shrine was already standing at one end of the sandbar that ran east-southeast of a hunters' settlement in the area (where the Tozai subway line runs today). Its symbolic spatial structure made skillful use of the natural environment. The shrine approach road juts out like a pier from the sandbar, while the shrine itself uses the broad surface of the inlet as a background. Even today, in the low-city atmosphere of the shrine precincts, we can sense the spatial structure of times past if we move around to the rear, for example in the pond that remains there. Within these precincts, surrounded by water and greenery, a popular theater occupied a tent of marsh-reed screens, while just outside, an unlicensed pleasure quarter did a bustling business. At the sea's edge just east of Tomioka Hachiman Shrine, Suzaki Benten Shrine—dedicated to the goddess of fortune — was built during the Genroku period. With its east-west approach road running nearly straight along the shore and its precincts jutting out into the sea, the configuration of this shrine can only be called magnificent. The view opened out over the water: to the east, toward the hills and mountains of the Boso Peninsula; in the distance to the northeast, toward Mount Tsukuba; to the south, toward Haneda and Suzugamori; and finally to the southeast, toward Mount Fuji. The area was rich in sources of amusement the year round: in spring, gathering shells; in summer, watching fireworks or other spectacles in the cool of the evening; in autumn, admiring the full moon; and in winter, viewing the snowy landscape. The shrine itself was frequently the site of ceremonies where Buddhist statues and icons were unveiled; such religious events played an important part in the vitality of the city. Outside these two shrines —

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Suzaki Benten and Tomioka Hachiman—teahouses lined the streets to form the center of the Fukagawa's amusement district. This method of situating religious facilities is diametrically opposite the one used in European cities. In Europe, the cathedral — the religious center of the city as a whole — was placed imposingly at the head of the public square. The parish church not only served as a religious facility but also administered local household registries and tax collection. Standing at one corner of the public square that was the center of daily life for the city's residents, it combined functions that would now be carried out by city hall and the local tax bureau. Separated from their surroundings only by thick walls and a single door, these churches created sacred space in the midst of the profane city streets. In addition, guilds and artisanal associations often had patron saints and were bound together by ties of religion. Thus, religion played an enormously important role in the building of everyday urban society. In Edo, neither the centralized facilities provided by the parish church in urban Europe nor the indispensable central square was to be found. Virtually every house in Japan had a Buddhist altar and a shelf for the family gods. In this sense, religion may have been more a part of daily life than in Europe, but it did not necessarily take a socialized form. Individuals and families worshiped their ancestors and homes provided space for religious elements, but these activities do not seem to have been tied to trade and production in a city or region, or to the building of a day-to-day sense of community. During the social upheavals of the late Tokugawa era, sites of popular worship such as shrines to the fox god were incorporated into the daily life of the city, and religious observances grew apace. But even then, religion never became the hub around which urban society was constructed, as it did in Europe. In Edo religious space tended to be created on the outskirts of the city or at the fringes of commercial, industrial, or residential space. Most religious space was removed from the daily lives of the townspeople and situated in places that were carefully chosen for their sacred, otherworldly image. It might, for example, be nesded on a hill far from the city streets, or along the water's edge. Because the approaches to such places and their hushed precincts formed a religious space, they acquired great meaning. In this way, Japanese religious space acquired an aura of the nonquotidian, the sacred, and the ceremonial. The conversion from ordinary living space was expressed both in the actual distribution of geographical settings and in people's consciousness. Take, for example, the locations of Kanda Myójin and Sannó Gongen

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(today's Hie) shrines, which both celebrate the Tenka Matsuri, one of the great festivals of old Edo. Kanda Myojin was originally located near Kandabashi Bridge, close to Edo Castle. When the city expanded, it was moved to Surugadai and then, in 1616, to its present location at Yushima, north of the outer moat. The Edo meisho zu byobu (Illustrated screen of Edo's landmarks) in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum depicts notable urban vistas of the Kan'ei period (1624-40); it portrays the shrine on the periphery of the city, brimming with the merry spirit of a playhouse district because of the No theater performances that accompany its postritual feasts. The other shrine, Sanno Gongen, was originally located within the casde grounds. As the casde expanded, it was moved to a site along the moat outside Hanzomon Gate and then, after the Great Meireki Fire, to its present location near Tameike Pond in Akasaka. In each case, the shrine was placed on top of a small hill and surrounded by wood and water—ideal conditions for a shrine. These shrines formed part of a special urban spatial structure: Kanda Myojin stood at the northeast edge of the city and Sanno Gongen at the southwest, with the crowded streets of Edo between them; their parishioners lived on one or the other side of the Nihonbashi River, which ran through the center of the city. When seen from Edo Castle, their locations acquired a significance similar to that of Kan'eiji and Zojoji temples, which guarded the "unlucky" quarter to the northeast of the castle. These two important shrines were located at opposite edges of the city. Not a single important shrine was located within Edo proper; in fact every shrine that was noted for its festivals was located on the periphery of the city. The temples and shrines of Edo formed the core of the city's religious space. The hilly and waterside areas around them first became landmarks and then developed into amusement districts. Thus, the presence of water is not only a relevant dimension of the city's substructure but is also exceedingly important in structuring the city's wide range of sacred and profane elements. Until the medieval period, according to Amino Yoshihiko, places such as temple and shrine entrances, markets, riverbanks and bridges — where itinerant artisans and vagabond artists gathered—developed as "sacred" places. This was a world unbound by secular relations, where the principle of "social nonattachment" operated; it became a sanctuary offering "freedom" and "protection" to those within. Sacred forestland, as well as rivers and the sea, acquired the character of a sanctuary. During the Tokugawa period such places came under the control of the sho-

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gunate or the daimyo and were eliminated. But they continued to exist in distorted form in the pleasure quarters and playhouses that thrived at the fringes of urban society.10 Amino's theory illuminates not only the development of the pleasure quarters and theater districts but also the structure of the city as a whole. It explains, for example, the location of Edo's religious spaces in the hills of the high city or along the water in the low city: it is easy to recognize the characteristics of a sanctuary in the frequent connection between woodland or water and the sacredness of a site. In Japan ethnologists have frequendy noted that water and mountains possess a sacred character owing to their connection with death or spirits. The people of Edo, escaping gloomy city streets governed by secular relations, could find release in the temple and shrine precincts and nearby amusement districts on the city's periphery—such places did indeed create a sanctuary. And because these locations were under the control of the commissioner of temples and shrines — rather than the city commissioner—the regulations governing them were undoubtedly looser than in the city proper. If we plot on a map of Edo the locations of public entertainment such as street theater, exhibitions, or shrine theater, we find that they concentrate heavily in popular shrines and temples and the areas around them (Fig. 32). One cluster developed at the tip of the plateau, in the border area that separated the commoner districts from the outlying areas. It included Kanda Myojin and Yushima Tenjin shrines; Kan'eiji Temple; Akagi, Ichigaya Hachiman, Hie Sanno, and Shiba Shinmei shrines; and Zojoji Temple. Many others developed in and around the religous space originally connected to the sacred image of water—for example, Fukagawa Tomioka Hachiman Shrine, and Eko-in and Sensoji temples. Eko-in was built at the eastern foot of Ryogokubashi Bridge early in the Tokugawa period in order to win salvation for the souls of people who had burned to death or drowned at the time of the Great Meireki Fire. Sensoji dates from the seventh century, when Asakusa was still a remote, nameless village on an inlet of Edo Bay; it traces its origins to the local worship of a statue of the goddess Kannon, which had been caught in a fisherman's net. Both temples grew up having deep associations with the water of the Sumida River. The theatrical performances inside the precincts of these temples and shrines were presented by promoters in cooperation with a given temple (the exception was the three companies chartered by the shogunate). In conjunction with a festival or the unveiling of a statue, a tent theater

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32. The distribution of amusement space in the middle of the nineteenth century.

was set up within the sacred precincts, with the performances ostensibly presented as offerings to the temple.

Amusement Centers Along the Avenues Tent theater and outdoor shows were also presented in the avenues alongside the water, most often where they ran past the base

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of a major bridge. As Amino points out, the "social nonattachment" of places associated with water, such as riverbanks and bridges, seems to have been inherited by these broad avenues. Ryogoku Hirokoji, created as afirebreakin the aftermath of the conflagration of 1703, vividly demonstrates this process. Unlike Edobashi Hirokoji, this street was located at a considerable distance from the center of the city. But Ryogokubashi Bridge had the geographical advantage of spanning a major artery for water transportation. It also linked the two provinces of Shimofusa and Musashi and formed an important node in the overland route joining the Honjo district with the center of Edo. It served, in short, as the eastern entrance to Edo. Moreover, to accommodate the peculiar bend in the Sumida River at just this point, this hump-backed bridge stretched a full 200 yards, affording a magnificent panorama of Mount Fuji towering over Edo's row upon row of streets. Here, nature and the city came together in harmony. After the middle of the eighteenth century, this district developed into Edo's foremost center of popular amusement. Free space of this sort could not have been created in the economic or political hub of the city, or in the commoner districts already incorporated into the system. As the central parts of the low city, beginning with Nihonbashi, developed into business spaces lined with great retail shops and wholesalers' warehouses, areas given over to amusement were gradually pushed further and further out toward the city's periphery. There they became exuberant amusement centers that attracted the people of the city. Popular religious sites such as Sensoji, to the north across the Kandagawa, and Eko-in, to the east across the Sumida at Ryogokubashi Bridge, provided optimal conditions for the growth of such centers. Because woodblock prints and illustrated guidebooks frequently depict areas fronting on the great avenues, it is still possible to get a feel for the energy of these places (Fig. 33). First, there were the restaurants and waterside teahouses concentrated near the mouth of the Kandagawa River; in the plaza at the base of the bridge, we find a row of tea stalls along the water's edge and, toward the town, a labyrinth of tightly packed show tents, theaters for jdmri puppet plays and other types of performance, and storytelling halls. In total contrast to the image of monumental permanence associated with European public squares, the "public squares" of Edo were effervescent locales created by a combination of the temporary playhouses and the energetic activity of the people within and around them. Public squares in Europe were laid out at the center of the city by the

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33. Senju, Shinbtm ukiyo-e Edo Ryogokubashi notyo no zu (A new woodblock print: Enjoying the cool of the evening at Ryogokubashi). Tokyo Chuo Toshokan. local ruler according to a plan. In Edo, from the beginning, they developed quite differently. The government created open spaces to serve as firebreaks at the bases of bridges and the foot of hills. Public squares came into being when the local populace gave life to these areas, embuing them with functions and meanings. Thus, in Edo the energy of the people played an important role in forming the city. But let us turn back to the public square along Ryogoku Hirokoji. Here, the scale of the open space is important. On the one hand, the square near the bridge opens out onto the Sumida River, using the magnificent vista to create an overflowing sense of freedom. On the other, the space within the amusement area closes off the field of vision. Organized into small-scale units, it uses the congestion of human traffic to create an energy that seems to fill the entire district. Such ingeniously contrasting presentations produced dramatic transformations of space. This "ludic space," with its atmosphere of freedom, is depicted in lavish detail in Nenashtgusa, by Hiraga Gennai (1728-79; pen name Furai Sanjin). In the summer, boaters on the cool water of the Sumida added to the

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liveliness of the area. The season for this particular amusement began on the twenty-eighth day of the fifth month, when an annual fireworks display was held over Ryogoku. Boats of every kind and description— roofed pleasure boats, houseboats, flat-bottomed rowboats, and barges—covered virtually the entire surface of the great river. Suspended in 1962, the annual Ryogoku fireworks were revived in 1978. On this one summer night, at least, the water and land are again enlivened with the revels that made Edo what it was. Ryogoku Hirokoji became popular as an entertainment center where one could enjoy the cool breeze blowing across the surface of the river. Because the Sumida marked the boundary between Edo and the outlying areas, the western side of Ryogoku was considered part of the shogun's capital, and performances staged there were unusually well regulated. Erotic shows, melodramas, and tricksters in general tended to concentrate near Eko-in on the eastern side of the river. This area was also known as the place where the cheap, unlicensed prostitutes popularly called golden or silver cats could be found. Because of the Sumida's acknowledged position as the boundary between the inside of the city and the outside, the eastern side of the river at Ryogoku acquired the character of a "city of darkness" with otherworldly ties. 11 The district, with the bridge as its focal point, became famous as the first genuine place of popular entertainment, not only in Edo, but in all of Japan. The public squares at the east and west ends of the bridge developed spontaneously as amusement centers. In them and in other areas near rivers and bridges, the wandering entertainers of early modern Edo traditionally gathered, creating zones of liberation. Even in a city under shogunal control, space remained for the principle of "social nonattachment" along the borders, in the waterside areas and avenues that were not privately owned. In Europe, the dynamic that created public space out of open squares usually operated in the center of the city. In Edo, however, it was the watersides and the bases of bridges, special places owned by the shogunal government, that could escape the social bonds constraining normal commoner districts and become places where the free activity of the populace was permitted. This logic of topos formation was peculiarly Japanese. This kind of free space was characteristic of the approaches to Edo's main bridges: Edobashi Hirokoji; Sujikai Yatsu Koji, which runs diagonal to it through the neighborhood surrounding Manseibashi Bridge; Unemegahara; and others. But with the Meiji Restoration, the situation

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changed completely. About 1873 government authorities clamped down on the houses of entertainment, and the reed-screen playhouses and riverside teahouses were torn down. With the development of the modern state, urban space came under official control, and these sanctuaries from the obligations of city life, with their vulgar energies so typical of Edo, were lost forever. A proclamation by the Grand Council of State in 187? designated as modern areas the precincts of Sensoji, Kan'eiji, Zojoji, and Fukagawa Hachiman temples, all sites much beloved by the common people of Edo. In such places, under the pretext of worship, Edo folk might take in a bit of voyeuristic entertainment or sample the offerings in the redlight district and thereby free themselves from the daily constraints of their institutionalized communities. The 1873 proclamation evinces the masterly designs of officialdom. The anarchic feelings that led common people to indulge themselves fully in such activities must have accorded ill with the official version of modernization: hence, the move to bring these spaces under state control.

Urban Theatrical Space Let us probe a litde further into the city's theatrical space. Entertainment areas moved as the city's districts developed and expanded, particularly as redistricting shifted the location of firebreaks. Nevertheless, in most cases this space continued to take shape at the base of the great bridges. Like the red-light districts, Edo's playhouses initially sprang up spontaneously along the water's edge, where brisk commercial activity regularly drew great numbers of people. The southern side of Nakabashi Bridge, for example, where Kabuki is said to have been presented for the first time in 1624, lies just to the bay side of the central commoner district between Nihonbashi and Kyobashi. The area soon developed into a base for maritime transport, lined with the comb-shaped piers of the district's many lumber wholesalers. Here, along the water's edge, the theater and red-light districts developed in tandem. The area has been captured in scrupulous detail in the Edo meisho zu byobu (Illustrated screen of Edo's landmarks), which depicts the Edo cityscape prior to the Great Meireki Fire (Fig. 34). The screen vividly foregrounds the Nakabashi theater district. Focusing on two theaters

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34- A view of the theater district at Nakabashi. Edo meisho zu byobu (Illustrated screen of Edo's landmarks). Idemitsu Bijutsukan.

featuring women's Kabuki, it provides a splendid rendering of the tightly packed line of archery ranges, puppet and acrobatic theaters, bathhouses populated with prostitutes, and so on. These facilities for popular amusement occupy an open space enclosed by the bay in front and the canal to the rear, which is ringed completely by teahouses that provide sex on the side. Built out over the bay or the canal, these establishments display a marvelous affinity for water that suggests the raisedfloor dwellings of Southeast Asia. Below them, boats heading toward the theaters and others offering the services of courtesans jostle one another on the water. The fundamental tie between water and ludic space in the early modern cities of Japan was recognizably present during the early Tokugawa period. An analysis by Matsuda Osamu of illustrations depicting the various entertainments found in Edo's brothels reveals their essential components — water, boat, and brothel—leading him to suggest that this combination expresses, in early modern form, the traditional Japanese sense of a fantastic other world. This structure of the ludic world—

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a kind of cosmology of the fantastic—was incorporated directly into the depiction of the Nakabashi theater district in Edo meisho zu byobu.12 As Edo developed, the entertainment area south of Nakabashi became increasingly central to the city's water transport and economy, and performances in the vicinity were eventually banned. Edo's playhouses came to be concentrated in Fukiya-cho, Nicho-cho in Sakai-machi, and Kobiki-cho; after the Great Meireki Fire, these were the only places granted official recognition as theater districts. As for the licensed areas of prostitution, it was thought that scattering them throughout the city would be injurious to public morals. During the Genna period (1615-24), they too were consolidated in Fukiyacho, which eventually became known as the Yoshiwara licensed quarter. Following the Great Meireki Fire, the shogunal government moved the quarter to the fields of Asakusa, on the city's periphery. From that time on, the neighboring districts to the west—Sakai-machi and Fukiyacho—drew crowds as theater and entertainment centers. This area had long been a hub of river traffic because of its location a little upstream on the Nihonbashi River, Edo's main water artery leading out of the bay. Here, near the rows of warehouses in the major waterside districts of Koami-cho, Horie-cho, and Shinzaimoku-cho, the new quarter took shape. It encompassed the officially designated theater district. But behind its structure we can see clearly the mechanisms that it inherited for establishing and developing theatrical space — the space created by traveling artists when they gathered along the riverbanks; the space formed by playhouses when they arose in association with waterside markets and commercial activity. In the districts that developed, Kabuki theaters such as the Nakamura-za, the Murayama-za, and the Miyako-za summoned audiences throughout the year with their booming drums. Teahouse theaters abounded, along with the homes of actors and theater employees. This area flourished for more than two hundred years — from Kan'ei (162244) to Tenpo (1830-44) (Fig. 35)The form of these theater districts was peculiar to Japan. After the Renaissance in the West, theaters began to take the place of the hotel de ville and cathedral as new monuments of the city. Looking grandly out over the public square, they possessed a symbolic character all their own. Open to the urban space that was the locus of citizens' lives, theaters were a central institution that reorganized the structure of the city visually. The theater districts of Edo, by contrast, were separated from the everyday urban space and enclosed; they formed a special area de-

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35. Theater street in Sakai-machi-Fukiya-cho. Hiroshige, Toto meisho nicho machi shibai no zu (Landmarks of the eastern metropolis: Plays in two districts).

fined by the countless playhouses concentrated there. Here, certainly, lies the explanation for the unique, nonquotidian sense of release that the theater provided. These differences in urban structure are related to differences in the ways that drama and theaters developed in the two settings. Although Europe also knew street-corner theater such as the commedia dell'arte, the theater as a place was a product of court culture incorporated into civil society. In Edo, however, plays came not from above but from below. They arose among the lowest strata of society, spread from them to the populace at large. 13 A l o n g the streets of Edo's theater districts, single theaters did not stand alone and separate. Rather, they blended harmoniously with the open one- or two-story teahouse theaters that lined both sides of the street. The front of the second story of these structures was covered by a billboard so large that it nearly hid the building itself. In both the theaters and teahouses, noren curtains and paper lanterns were suspended from a short canopy above the first floor, while innumerable

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36. Theater street in Kobiki-chó. Edo meisbo zue (Edo's landmarks, illustrated).

banners fluttered in front. The effect, amid all this variety, was a theater of marvelous unity and coherence. It arose from a notion of placement completely different from that of European theaters, which were situated to make the most of the laws of perspective. The notion of using temporary signs and equipment to create a festive atmosphere has continued in Japanese cities right up to the present. Now, in a departure from the past, no thought is given to creating a harmonious effect on the whole space; instead, myriad heterogenous elements are jumbled together, making an ordered beauty impossible. Nevertheless, the development of the theater districts during the Tokugawa period provided a model for the entertainment centers of today, such as Kabuki-chó in Shinjuku or Dótonbori in Osaka, where theaters and movie houses, cafés and bars line the streets and lure customers with their own special vulgar and raucous atmosphere. In addition to Sakai-machi and Fukiya-chó, one other licensed district offered major theatrical entertainment. This was Kobiki-chó, which was even more vitally connected to the water. Edo meisho zue (Edo's landmarks, illustrated; Fig. 36) contains a splendid representation of the area, which faces the canal in the rear part of Ginza 6-chome. At the

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water's edge we see a row of open floating teahouses, hung with lanterns; around them cluster roofed pleasure boats, large and small. We see crowds crossing the bridge on their way to the theater. This movement across space — of being drawn through the water by boat or across the bridge on foot—to the entertainment district with its forest of banners and booming drums, must have added to the anticipation of the eager playgoers. Here, nearly all the human senses—sight, sound, touch, and taste —came into play. Performative space, an "extraordinary" fiction where the populace gathered in search of a sense of liberation, was thus associated with water and enveloped in an atmosphere that was both festal and emotive. The essence of this Edo-period theater district persists today in the entertainment center of Dotonbori, in Osaka. There, where teahouse theaters once sat facing the canal, eating and drinking establishments now line the streets, including one with a huge billboard showing a crab that moves its claws to the left and the right. The history of Kabuki's success is the history of its ejection from the center of the city. In 1842 Edo's theater districts were finally moved to the city's periphery, surrounded by the temple of Asakusa on one side and water on the other. The place was called Saruwaka-cho. The peripheral character of this site was more than a matter of geography. It also meant that theater people were forbidden to mix with ordinary townspeople; they were clearly marked as outsiders in the status order. The same was true for the licensed quarters, which, in advance of the theater districts, had been forcibly moved to Shin-Yoshiwara after the Great Meireki Fire. Except for its central gate, Yoshiwara-cho was then surrounded entirely by a ditch said to have turned black from all the tooth-dye tossed into it. The quarter was isolated from the rest of the city. Edo's prostitutes, like its actors, were placed under social quarantine in what Hirosue Tamotsu calls border areas of ill repute. These areas were "extraordinary," with a character totally removed from the everyday life of the commoner population. At the same time, however, they existed as part of daily life on the edge of the city. Their "ill repute" was a fiction: because they appeared on the periphery, they were seen as public spaces freed from quotidian consciousness, as places that transcended the logic of the status order and its sense of values. The people of Edo possessed a unique "bad" space on the edge of their city, and this space produced much of the commoner or popular culture of the city.14 These "bad" places were linked to the sacred. Kabuki actors fre-

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quently portrayed the departed, vengeful souls who wander the boundaries between this world and the next, and the lives of prostitutes were in fact similar to those of shrine maidens and mediums. They can be considered sanctuaries, controlled by the principles of social nonattachment and nonownership. The history of Edo during the Tokugawa period tells not only of the development and expansion of the city but also of the removal of sanctuaries like these to the periphery. But as this public space was freed from daily convention, it acquired a more radical form. As the city grew, its inhabitants found that the space given over to culture and play was separated from the political and economic center, and from the space of everyday life; it took shape almost entirely at the city's periphery, where closer contact with nature created a sense of liberation. In Europe, the distinct center of the city gave it a centripetal structure; in Japan during the Tokugawa period, the vibrant center of cities like Edo was shunted somewhat to the outside, producing an eccentric urban structure. This structure in turn became the source of Edo's particular form of urban vitality. Although it resulted in some respects from the shogunal government's urban policies, it also arose from an essential characteristic of Japanese culture, the masterfully effective use of the mundane and the extraordinary in the context of actual life. This characteristic was not expressed only in the cyclical celebration of festivals. Rather, it reflected the continuous existence of extraordinary space adjoining the occupational and residential areas and incorporated into the daily social relations of the city. It continued to appear in modern Tokyo: in 1888 the licensed quarter of Nezu was removed to a spacious seaside location in Suzaki, beyond Fukagawa, on the grounds that its close proximity to the imperial university was injurious to public morals. And then there was the Ryounkaku, or Twelve Stories — a brick structure in Asakusa. After it collapsed at the time of the Kanto earthquake of 1923, the brothels gathered underneath (euphemistically called choice sake houses) were moved, lock, stock and barrel, to Tamanoi on the opposite bank of the Sumida River, where their business flourished. This type of urban space (which Kurimoto Shin'ichiro calls a shadow city, and Unno Hiroshi, the underworld)15 emerged in concentrated form on the fringe of Japanese cities in every period, preserving their strong sense of interior space as they did so. We see, then, that from time to time, Edo's citizens were able to escape their enclosed, tightly administered communities and relax in an anarchic area that they entered as free individuals. In Edo, these areas

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were located along the upper reaches of the Sumida River, and the city's ludic space as a whole was strongly tied to the water. Pleasure seekers would set out in roofed boats from riverside teahouses near Yanagibashi, make their way up the "big river" (the Sumida), and using the chinquapin trees of the Matsuura residence in Honjo or the famous "Head and Tail" pine in front of the shogunate's rice storehouses as a landmark, steer their vessels in the direction of San'ya Canal. The excitement of the pleasure seekers must have mounted as they traveled along the perpetually changing water from the inner-city Sumida to the canal. People traveled by boat not only to the Yoshiwara but also to the theater district of Saruwaka-cho in Asakusa. We learn something of the pleasures of playgoing by boat from Imaizumi Mine, a writer who was born before the Restoration into the Katsuragawa family, practitioners of Dutch medicine, and raised in Tsukiji and Teppozu. He reminisced in Nqgori noyume (Lingering dreams): I can recall the plays of those days, yes, much as if I were unrolling a beautiful picture scroll. How I used to look forward to going; I could scarcely sleep the night before.... By and by, our servants would complete the preparations for the expedition, and off we would go in a roofed boat, heading for Asakusa. When our party was large, we used a much grander pleasure boat. From the teahouse —it had already been decided which one — people would come to meet us at the dock. Each would be carrying a paper lantern bearing their establishment's crest. "How delightful to see you! You are most welcome indeed!" they would exclaim, ever so politely, and lead us up from the boat to the teahouse. The playgoing district was called Saruwaka-cho; there were theaters in each of the three blocks —the "three plays," they were called. Sometimes they would begin at the same time, but each usually performed a different play; if one was doing Chushingura [The treasure-home of loyal retainers], say, another would do Osome Hisamatsu. Both sides of the street were lined with teahouses, their norm curtains hanging out in front. And my, how beautiful the dangling paper lanterns were! Taking the boat from Tsukiji and going to the theater there was just about the most wonderful thing you could do; it was like floating on air.

Waterside Space Along the Sumida River In the latter half of the Tokugawa period, Edo's amusement centers made a dramatic move from the vicinity of Shiba to the

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areas near Honjo and Fukagawa. This move was closely related to the vicissitudes of the licensed quarters and theater districts. But more important, the Sumida River, which had formerly flowed outside the city, was gradually being incorporated inside its boundaries. For the residents of what had grown to be the biggest city in the world, the shady banks and broad waterside panoramas along the Sumida afforded an ideal setting for escape from the confines of daily life. As the urban districts expanded, these open areas spread, eventually even crossing the river. The government sought to provide an outlet for popular energies. It began to build temples and shrines and to plant pine and cherry trees in places away from the built-up areas, hoping to draw the populace there for recreation. Beautiful prostitutes invariably appeared in such places, casting sidelong glances at passersby and tugging at their sleeves. During the administration of Tokugawa Yoshimune (1716-45), the eighth shogun, the Sumida embankment, along with Asukayama and Gotenyama, was made an official public park, and cherry trees were planted to line the riverbank. Although it took time to grow into an amusement center shared by the people of Edo, by the 1810s it had truly come to belong to the populace. Teahouses and restaurants opened, one after another, on both banks of the river, in the hopes of drawing the trade of crowds in search of amusement.16 We have already had a glimpse of the lively scene near Eko-in, in Honjo, across Ryogokubashi Bridge. Fukagawa, just across Eitaibashi Bridge, was also a popular place of amusement for the people of Edo. Not only did it lie on the far side of the Sumida River, thus creating a world independent of the city; it was also hard by the water and offered the populace a setting eminently suited to its tolerant, spontaneous nature. Originally, Fukagawa was a small fishing settlement near Fukagawa Hachiman Shrine. Fostered by theatrical performances within the shrine precincts and by teahouses at its gates, it became an amusement center popular for its licensed quarter. The waterside areas near the Sumida and those of the Koto district (east of the river) stirred cravings for fun and pleasure among the people of the crowded city. At the same time, they acted as a catalyst for the growth of entertainment centers at the entrances of temples and shrines and the bases of the city's great bridges. As we trace the development of recreational space in Edo, we notice a number of parallels in the origin and growth of other cities throughout history. A founding period filled with constructive activity is followed

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by a formative period of boundless civic energy when economic prosperity reaches its peak. Soon, however, life in the city generates social contradictions. People lose interest in productive activity; they are drawn toward culture or seek escape in nature. This seems to be the inevitable cycle of the urban civilization that human beings have created for themselves. The Italian Renaissance was, first of all, a cultural movement that flourished because of the social and economic activities of people in medieval cities. A vivid example is found in Venice, the city of water. The magnificent urban culture of renaissance and baroque Venice was possible because of the wealth accumulated in the city's trade with Asia during the middle ages. The city's people indulged their taste for the theater and music, to say nothing of their passion for carnivals and banquets. Venice's prostitutes, it was also said, were the most beautiful in the world. The city's elites, meanwhile, built numerous country villas in their search for natural beauty. In this way, the urban culture of Venice—a culture that captured the hearts of Europe's intellectuals — grew to full maturity. Further back in history, at the time of the Roman Empire, we find a similar phenomenon. As Roman control extended over the entire Mediterranean and the peaceful, stable Pax Romana began, Roman culture matured. Within the city, a popular culture of the masses flourished in the form of entertainments such as public bathing and spectacles at the Coliseum; near the sea or in rural areas, the elites built villas open to the great outdoors. We are told that the superb Neapolitan coast in particular was lined with villas looking out on the sea. In times of peace and prosperity, spectacular open architecture of this sort always appeared on the scene. In the case of Edo, the city already contained within its boundaries an abundance of waterside areas. Thus, waterside recreational space, with its sense of liberation, was available to the entire population. The daimyo monopolized a section of the rich waterside as their own individual living space. There were numerous daimyo residences that featured walk-through landscape gardens open to the inflowing tide; an example can be found in the Kiyosumi Gardens. But the wonderful waterside was also lined with all manner of open-air establishments, from the most exclusive restaurants to the cheapest teahouses. City residents of every class, therefore, could share in the enjoyment of these entertainment facilities. Buildings open to the sea or river truly symbolized peace and prosperity. With the advent of the era described as the Pax Toku-

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gawa,17 the recreational space that developed — albeit briefly, as we have seen—in the theater district along the water at Nakabashi gave rise yet again to a flowering of culture. There is a fascinating picture that illustrates the great variety of human activity attracted to the Sumida River—Hiroshige's Eitaibashi zenzu (A complete view of Eitaibashi Bridge; Fig. 37). It looks out over the Sumida from the area of Nihonbashi, with the bridge stretching over the water to the left. At the top right is Tsukudajima; top left, across the Sumida, is the Fukagawa district. Close observation gives us a clear sense of the cityscape of that time. The foreground represents the area where Edo's commoner district met the bay. At the lower right, where the Nihonbashi River, the most important link between the bay and the commercial hubs of Edobashi and Nihonbashi, makes its way, we see a row of white plaster and tilewalled warehouses facing the water. Behind them lies Minami Shinboricho, and at the base of the bridge in the center panel we see Kita Shinbori-cho (closest to the bridge is the boat watchhouse), both displaying the husde and busde of the commoner districts. Canals circulate through these low-city commoner districts, and on them we see a number of small barges laden with goods. Just off Tsukudajima, in the middle of the Sumida, a number of large junks sit at anchor with lowered sails (right-hand side of the screen). In the center of the channel, stretching down from the bridge to the mouth of the river, cargo ships enter the harbor, their sails full with wind. Here we get a view of the transport of goods into the great consuming metropolis that was Edo. A dramatic change from the commercial world, the island of Tsukudajima appears in the right-hand side of the picture. Fishermen from the village of Tsukudamura in Settsu Province had settled the island en masse during the Tensho period (1573-92). Together with a hunting and fishing settlement in Fukagawa, Tsukudajima gave rise to the great fish market at Nihonbashi and sustained the kitchens of Edo. Across the river we see Fukagawa, which developed later than the other districts and served the city's residents as an amusement center. Along the bank nearest the bridge stands a row of wholesalers' warehouses seemingly linked end to end. At the mouth of the river, we can make out a row of open teahouses in Fukagawa Shinchi that, jutting out over the water, command a splendid view. This scene captures the very essence of Fukagawa. To the west and south of the bridge, we can also make out a number of roofed pleasure boats rounding the tip of

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Fukagawa Shinchi, threading their way past the heavy, laden barges. These carried customers along the shore in search of fun and pleasure. We can see that the waterside space along the Sumida brought together a variety of urban activities, clustered around the distributive economy on the one hand and the entertainment culture on the other. Each not only built structures and facilities suited to its needs but also developed boats that were wonderfully stylized in scale and use. The result was a cityscape combining the beauties of nature and human artifice. The modes of behavior of people in each cluster were refined, even elevated, to the level of a unique culture. The values of the age were most keenly reflected here at the waterside, where all these activities were concentrated. In fact, during the Edo period, urban waterside land use in all its forms — the cultures of industry, distribution, residences, and entertainment—combined to form a complete and perfect cycle. After the Meiji period, the edge of the Sumida River and Tokyo Bay increasingly took on the character of an industrial belt devoted to industry and economic growth; as factories and warehouses were built, the city's populace was gradually driven from the waterside. Today, however, with shifts in the city's industrial structure, factories are being vacated at an ever more rapid pace, and land use at the waterfront is in the midst of a dramatic change. Once again, a variety of functions are concentrated along the water: from high-rise condominiums and office buildings to international conference centers, waterside parks, and cultural facilities. As in New York's S0H0 district, artists are increasingly revitalizing old warehouses — which offer extensive space at low cost— into galleries, theaters, and so on. The catch-phrase "downtown renaissance" is beginning to be heard everywhere. It is a fine thing that the many amenities of the waterfront are being appreciated anew. But it is well to bear in mind the danger that, as large corporate buildings and tall condominiums rise in the area, the citizenry may once again be barred from the waterfront. Under these circumstances, to unearth and describe once more the many uses of space and the richness of popular activity that have developed along Tokyo's waterfront since the Edo period may enrich our image of the downtown area. Perhaps it is simply beyond us to imagine the attractions of low-city Edo. Let us seek assistance from the Swiss diplomat Aimé Humbert. In describing the Sumida riverside and its upper reaches, Humbert likened what he saw to the gorgeous waterscape of Venice: "In all things Edo presents peaceful harmony; the movements of people, their footfalls and

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voices, songs and music, all seem to be permeated with a dreamlike melody. Where does one find its like in Europe? Only along the banks and in the squares of the Queen of the Adriatic, Venice herself."18 The Sumida, sweeping through the low city and giving sustenance to the settlements throughout the river basin, is truly the counterpart of the Grand Canal, which runs through the heart of Venice, and the canals that reach into every corner of the low city resemble the waterways that course among Venice's many islands. In discussing the watery capital of Edo, Hasegawa Takashi drew on Humbert's account.19 He explained the significance of Tsumaki Yorinaka's Meiji-period design for Nihonbashi Bridge, suggesting that the Nihonbashi River, the city's main canal, could be seen as a kind of water-borne Champs Elysée. Others have also compared low-city Tokyo with Venice. In the mid1920s, for example, Nishimura Shinji's Edo Fukagawa jôcho no kenkyû (Studies in the romance of old Edo and Fukagawa) drew upon this likeness. Nishimura began by quoting Arthur Symons: On each side was water, nothing but water, stretching out vaguely under the pale evening light; and at first there was not a sign of land ahead. Then a wavering line, with dark ships, and thin shafts of rigging, came out against the horizon, like the first glimpse of an island; the line broadened, lights began to leap, one after another, out of the darkness, and a great warehouse, glowing like a furnace, grew up solidly out of the water. We were in Venice.20 For Nishimura, this passage described equally well the feeling of crossing over the Sumida to Fukagawa on Eitaibashi Bridge. It was from this comparison with Venice that he developed his study of Fukagawa. The originality of Nishimura's study lies in the fact that, rather than treat all of the low city, he focused narrowly on Fukagawa, which like Venice, floats on a lagoon. With the Nakagawa River to the east and the Sumida to the west, facing Tokyo Bay and surrounded by water on all sides, Fukagawa is indeed a city on the water. It possesses a unique topography because of its ties to the water, and its customs are filled with a provincial flavor. Even though Nishimura's view of the city dates back more than half a century, it reveals a complex conception that remains astonishingly fresh today. Nishimura saw the city as a living thing. He posited a series of developmental stages in its human geography: (1) fishing setdement, (2) temple town, (3) commercial zone, and (4) industrial zone. His chief concern was to consider the growth and maturation of the area's culture

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and ethos in light of changes in the economic base. In his analysis of Fukagawa's physical growth and its inhabitants' daily lives, Nishimura provided an example of how to write authentic cultural history. This kind of study was possible because the physical environment of the waterside provided a great variety of local activities and culture. Today the river may be polluted; it may be ignored or viewed as an irritating problem. But it was the river that gave shape to the region. Its transport sustained the economy and encouraged the location of industry. In addition, because it constantly played on the spirit of the local people and fostered their sensitivity and creativity, it was a key factor in producing the urban culture. Thus, Nishimura's study prefigures the intellectual concerns of today, which include a rising awareness of water and the waterside. Recently, an interdisciplinary research organization met in the small city of Cham be ry, in the mountains of eastern France, to discuss the significance of water and the city for human mental phenomena. Their case study was Venice, the city of water par excellence. Using approaches from a variety of fields — literature, painting, architecture, urban engineering, and psychoanalysis — the conference created a mutifaceted portrait of Venice in relief.21

Waterfront Space in Modern Times

The history of Tokyo since the Meiji Restoration is the history of its transformation from a city on water to a city on land. This does not mean, however, that the role played by water suddenly vanished. It is possible to follow the path of urban change by using water as a guide. In reading the formation of Tokyo as a modern city, water does, indeed, serve as an effective keyword. Let us look first at theatrical space, which was so significant in making Edo into a city. In the wake of the Tenpo Reforms, the shogunal government drove the theater district to Saruwaka-cho, at the edge of the city, and limited the staging of performances to the three licensed companies of Nakamura, Ichimura, and Morita. After the Restoration this district lost its significance, and in 1872 the Morita Company moved to Shintomi-cho, the first of an increasing number of theaters that moved to the center of the city. Meanwhile, the banning of tent theaters and other popular shows at temples and shrines and along the great

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avenues caused major changes in the way entertainment was presented. As the modern Meiji state developed, the entertainment world lost its original vulgar energies. Throughout these developments, until the beginning of the Pacific War, Asakusa remained the most popular place of entertainment. In 1873 the precincts of Sensoji temple (from Tokugawa times an amusement spot of enormous vitality) were designated a modern-style public park and divided into seven sections. Nakamise (the shopping arcade leading to the temple) constituted the second section; Okuyama (the Hanayashiki amusement park), the fifth; and the swampland to the southwest (subsequently cleared and turned into an entertainment district), the sixth. The secret of Asakusa's popularity doubdess sprang from its variety of spectacles and entertainments — the Hanayashiki, the twelve-story tower Ryounkaku, Panorama Hall, and so on—that took part in the cultural fads of the time. But we must not overlook Ooike (also called Hyotan Pond). As many colored woodblock prints and photographs make clear, the image of Asakusa's sixth district was closely tied to the romantic atmosphere of Hyotan Pond, with its cherry and willow trees and lines of teahouses and outdoor stalls. Here, in its Edo-period landmarks, its space for popular entertainment, and its modern cultural contrivances, we find the key to Asakusa's enormous popularity among the masses (Fig. 38). Toward the end of the Meiji period, the entertainment area of the sixth district, the area south of the center, changed into an urban space that stood out for its modern atmosphere even in Tokyo. A great avenue running in a straight, east-west line between the temples of Kan'eiji in Ueno and Sensoji in Asakusa had long been an important artery. It was also the main approach to the sixth district. At the southwest corner of Hyotan Pond, where the avenue comes to an end, the road branches off in many directions, like spokes on a wheel. On one sharply angled corner lot the landmark Opera Hall was erected in the form of a cylinder topped by a dome. It created a baroque urban space, an attempt at visual effects. Turning right and heading south, we come upon a series of buildings lining both sides of the road, decorated with spires and domes and arched windows, of a lively, uninhibited design that we might term neobaroque (Fig. 39). Most of these buildings are movie theaters, which became popular late in the Meiji period; they were built as far as possible in Western style in order to pique people's curiosity. It is said that this odd street scene came into being when the theaters' owner became

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38. Twelve Stories and Hyotan Pond. Asakusa. koen no kei (Views of Asakusa Park; lithograph). Kashiwazaki Kurofunekan.

convinced, after visiting an exhibition in the United States, that the quickest way to lure customers was to astonish them with the appearance o f the building. 22 The designs of the buildings and the spatial structure of the main avenues in this area were made over entirely in Western style, but if w e look at the first and second stories o f the buildings, we see fluttering banners and hanging portraits of actors — the devices used in the tent theaters of Edo to heighten the festive atmosphere. The people w h o walk along these streets discover that a familiar environment, with the scale and tactile feeling of the theater districts of old Edo, has developed in the modern city as well. Even though the straight streets are crammed with neo-baroque-style buildings, the laws of perspective make them disappear completely. Even in the late Meiji period, Hyotan Pond remained indispensable to the atmosphere o f the entertainment district. Walking north through the baroque space and looking at 'Twelve Stories," people's field of vi-

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39. Entertainment street in Asakusa's sixth distria; 1920s. Madri: Meiji-Taisho-

Shòwa (The city: Meiji-Taisho-Shòwa).

sion suddenly opened up to the right of the Opera Hall, as the totally incongruous, romantic space of the waterside stretched out before them. Here, too, the expanse of water performed a crucial function in producing the fundamentally liberated feeling of the popular entertainment spot. When we think of the entertainment centers of the Edo period, riverside and canalside areas come to mind: the Ryogoku area and the neighborhood of Sensoji along the Sumida, as well as Edobashi Hirokoji along the Nihonbashi River. But we must not forget one other, located a short way inland: the foothills of Ueno. This area, which developed along a wide hirokoji with the green of the Ueno hills as its backdrop, contained Shinobazu Pond to its west, so that here too, the presence of water was an important factor in the growth of an entertainment center. It is well known that a large number of "rendezvous teahouses"—the equivalent of today's "love hotels"—were built in the romantic neighborhood of Shinobazu Pond. The area around the central island, which houses a shrine to Benzaiten and was built in imitation of Chikufujima at Lake Biwa (one of Japan's five famous Benten shrines), was particularly favored with such establishments.23 The pond provided the ideal spot for

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a liberated place full of romantic feeling. And we may well imagine that it was carefully incorporated into plans for the new-style entertainment center in Asakusa's sixth district. The filling in of Hyotan Pond, which had reflected the changing face of the sixth district over the decades from Meiji to Taisho, and from Taisho to Showa, must have accelerated all the more the postwar decline of Asakusa as an entertainment center. Most of the places that have flourished as Tokyo landmarks since the Meiji period, or as entertainment spots for the demimonde, developed around a pond or a lake. Yotsuya Araki-cho, in the high city, is a classic example. This spot, where the main residence of the Matsudaira lords of Settsu once stood, had become an open field, the home of foxes and raccoon dogs. After 1877, when tent theaters appeared, the area around its pond developed into a bustling pleasure quarter that catered to members of the military and to students. Although today most of the pond has been filled in, the stone stairway leading down to its original location follows exactly the same labyrinthine route as it did during the Meiji period. On the small pond that remains, Benten continues to be worshiped. The immediate area, slighdy lower than its surroundings, is shaped like the bottom of a cone. Refined houses of assignation and Japanese-style restaurants form terraced rows leading up the surrounding slopes. The sound of a samisen from behind reed screens hung along the eaves recalls the feel of the old pleasure quarter. Such a place is a rarity indeed in the Tokyo of today. Shinjuku's Juniso, a suburban landmark since the Tokugawa period, also had a licensed quarter on the gentle slopes of a pond. The pond itself has been filled in, but the ginkgo trees that line its banks hold memories of days long past. This street of traditional restaurants, built to a far more delicate scale, still exists, directly behind a group of highrise buildings outside the west gate of Shinjuku Station. The powerful contrast between the two provides a cross section of the culture of today's mega-metropolitan Tokyo. Many of the great theaters built during the Meiji period were located by the water. Nakasu, for example, stretched out in the middle of the Sumida. During the Edo period it flourished for a time as a waterside entertainment spot but was demolished during the Tenpo Reforms. From then until the middle of the Meiji period, it was no more than a desolate island. It came back to life in 1893, when the Masago-za theater was established. A print in Shinsen Tokyo meisho zue (New selection of Tokyo landmarks, illustrated; ca. 1898) shows that water traffic in the area remained brisk, with many boats plying back and forth across the

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40. Nakasu about 1898. marks, illustrated).

Shinsen Tokyo meishozue

(New selection of Tokyo land-

river. In the middle of the island, a traditional-looking theater festooned with banners is plainly visible. As befits an Edo theater district, a line of teahouses and restaurants stretches along the riverside. Photographs of the area taken after the 1923 earthquake show that the Edo-period stone wall was still intact; the appearance of the waterside had scarcely changed. Now, however, beyond the crude concrete "razor" embankment, only a single restaurant remains in the all-too-desolate scene. The illustration in Shinsen Tokyo meisho zue shows that, on the shore opposite Nakasu, the Asano Cement factory stood on the site of a former daimyo's mansion, its black smokestacks rising to the sky (Fig. 40). Beginning in the late 1890s, the offshore area near Fukagawa was filled in, and factory smokestacks began to appear. In addition to Asano Cement, the Sumida riverside was home to the Tokyo Spinning Company, Ishikawajima Harima Heavy Industries, and others; along the canal slighdy to the east the Kao Soap factory was constructed early on. So it was that the waters of the Sumida River and the shore of Tokyo Bay became polluted, and the romance of Edo was gradually lost. Of all places, the waterside most keenly reflected the industrial revolution's onward march through the city.

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Tokyo's transformation into a city on land took place with the development of the railroad. Even this began initially in association with water. Edo's internal transportation network, as we have seen, was organized around the canals; land and water came together on the banks. As goods concentrated there, warehouses appeared and wholesalers gathered. Both people and goods oriented their movements toward the waterfront. It is understandable, therefore, that in the early days of the railroad, every important station — Shinbashi, Ryogoku, Iidamachi, and the like—was built along the water. The tracks were laid out so that they ended just in front of the canals at the edge of the old city. This system, like European terminals, was a dead-end arrangement. The "through system" of today, where trains simply pass through the station, was first adopted in Osaka and only subsequendy introduced to Tokyo. Tokyo's first genuine station plaza, in front of the Manseibashi station, was located along the venerable Kandagawa waterfront. (As if to recall the past, the present-day Transportation Museum is located here.) During the Edo period the area was known for its lively Sujikai Yatsu (eight crossroads) Koji, which continued to flourish after the Restoration. Shortly after the beginning of the twentieth century, the Kobu Railroad (the predecessor of today's Chuo line), which had ended at Iidamachi, expanded east along the southern bank of the outer moat (the Kandagawa River). The Manseibashi station began operations in 1912 as its terminus. A splendid stationhouse of brick was erected, and the station plaza laid out. A bronze statue in the center stood as a monument to Commander Hirose Takeo, a hero of the recent RussoJapanese War. This genuine city plaza soon became a landmark of the new Tokyo. After the Restoration, how did the popular plazalike spaces along the bridges of Edo's low city change? With the advent of the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment in 1870s, the importance of these locales, far from declining, actually increased, both functionally and visually. Ever conscious of its image abroad, the Meiji government began to remove the tent theaters and waterside teahouses from the avenues alongside Ryogoku and other bridges — those areas created by the people of Edo and overflowing with their vulgar, uninhibited energies. Their place was taken by great edifices intended to sustain the institutions of the modern state; they reigned as symbols of the new Tokyo, which enthusiastically adopted the latest, most novel designs to fashion itself. The Age of Civilization and Enlightenment really began beside the bridges of the waterfront, long the outward face of the city of Edo. And it was to these

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locales that the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment brought the most drastic changes. The Daiichi Kokuritsu Ginko, or First National Bank, the very symbol of civilization and enlightenment and the frequent subject of colored woodblock prints, was built at the base of Kaiunbashi Bridge, the hub of Tokyo's water system. The mansion of Mukai Shokan, the shogun's commissioner of ships during the early Tokugawa period, had occupied one corner at the east side of the bridge, and water traffic along the Nihonbashi River had been supervised from this location. Thus, the site played a pivotal role in the water system of the city of water. Originally, the bank building served as the seat of exchange for the Mitsui-gumi, merchants whose great wealth dated from the Edo period. It was then incorporated into the national banking system, opening its doors as the First National Bank in 1872. The edifice was designed by Shimizu Kisuke. Its symbolic layering of two lower stories in Western style beneath a Japanese-style castle was a classic example of the blending of Western and Japanese elements that was typical of early Meiji architecture. This imposing monument was extolled as a building equal to any in the proud and civilized countries of Europe. As the woodblock print by Kobayashi Kiyochika eloquently shows, it towered over the base of the bridge even as it blended into a space that preserved still the romance of Edo (Fig. 41). Bridgeside spaces, with their constant traffic and their open visual expanse, attracted the gaze of the multitudes. They were thus especially favored as sites for the grand architectural symbols of the new age. During the Edo period these areas had brimmed with activity. But visually, they presented a monotonous row of low structures —commoner residences, shop stalls, teahouses, show tents, and the like—nothing that would provide a strong accent to the skyline. The new bridgeside buildings did just that, and swiftly became the new landmarks of the city. In the early Meiji years, however, bridgeside spaces had yet to be completely transformed. These new monuments rose imposingly, but singly, and they towered over their surroundings. Indeed, Western-style monuments were all the more prominent because they were built in an Edo context. For the most part they occupied the sites of former daimyo mansions, their extensive lots separated from the street by fences or walls. They had not yet assumed the form found in European cities, where such buildings towered directly over the public square. Not far from the First National Bank, beside Yoroibashi Bridge, stood the headquarters of the Shimada-gumi, a merchant house with

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41. The First National Bank (left) and the Central Post Office. Kokubungaku Kenkvu Shirvokan.

official ties to the new government. This structure later housed the Tokyo Securities Exchange. With its enclosed compound, it is another typical example of early Meiji architecture. The Central Post Office Building completed in 1874 was an epochmaking structure. Designed by Hayashi Tadayuki, it was constructed on a site occupied by a fish-market storage facility during the Edo period. As we have seen, most government and public buildings of the early Meiji period were built on the sites of former daimyo residences and, like these mansions, were surrounded by walls and entered through gates. But the Post Office, the first truly urban-style building in Tokyo, faced direcdy out on the street and formed a city block. It was located at the busy base of Edobashi Bridge — a transportation node during the Edo period — and next to the Brick Town of the Ginza, the showcase of civilization and enlightenment. This Western-style edifice must have attracted the attention of passersby; as a landmark of the new Tokyo, it appeared frequendy in colored woodblock prints.

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42. Shibusawa Ei'ichi's house at Kabuto-chô. Kenpô happushiki taisai no zu (Pictures of the great festivals at the promulgation of the constitution). Kokubungaku Kenkyû Shiryôkan.

Beginning with the First National Bank at the base of Kaiunbasly Bridge, new-style commercial buildings rose one after the other in the area of Edobashi and Yoroibashi bridges —in Kabuto-chS, Minami Kayaba-cho, and Sakamoto-cho. The area became Japan's first business district and took its place at the heart of the Japanese economy of the early Meiji era. Its position was supported by its location at the hub of the city's water transportation system. In addition, it contained the sites of former daimyo residences, which the new age was going to need for a number of new functions.24 Shibusawa Ei'ichi (1840-1931), the entrepreneur who played a vital role in creating this district, erected his own splendid residence in Venetian Gothic style at the edge of Kabuto-cho, which jutted out into the Nihonbashi River behind the First National Bank (Fig. 42). This building, like a Venetian trading house with an open design of airy and graceful arches, cast a beautiful reflection onto the water's surface. During the Meiji period, however, virtually no structure in the vicinity of the business district deviated from the eclectic style, whether in design or in the composition of urban space. Authentically modern urban space was first achieved somewhat further upstream on the Nihonbashi River, at the base of Nihonbashi Bridge. The original bridge was replaced in 1910 by a splendid stone structure with a flowing arch, designed by the architect Tsumaki Yorinaka. About the same time, as if in

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43. The foot of Nihonbashi Bridge in the 1910s. (Machi: Mtijì-Taishó-Shdwa (The city: Meiji-Taishó-Shòwa).

response, buildings of superb formal beauty—the Murai Bank (1910; later, the Tokai Bank), the Imperial Hemp Spinning Company (1912, designed by Tatsuno Kingo; the present-day Daiei Building), the Kokubun Trading Company (1916), the Nomura Building (1929) —filledthe area in the vicinity of the bridge. Because of their height and volume and the sense of permanence that comes with stone and brick construction, this group of buildings created for Tokyo its first public plaza that made substantial use of exterior space. Here we can see for the first time the transition from an Edo-style plaza, a space made up of temporary features and defined by the various activities of the people who gathered there, to a Western-style plaza carved out of solid building walls. Nihonbashi led the way in this fundamental change in Tokyo's urban space, which began in the 1910s (Fig. 43) and gave an unmistakable form to the city during the years of recovery from the great earthquake of 1923. The earthquake jolted all traces of the romance of Edo from the city's waterside, and the urban spaces and entertainment centers, with their variety of meaning, went into a precipitous decline. During this period, waterside space was reevaluated. Under the inspiration of European and American thinking about the city, the Tokyo waterfront began to attract

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attention as a site for the creation of a new kind of urban beauty. Attractive urban space began to appear all along the waterside—the waterside promenade at Sumida Park; the group of modern-style bridges beginning with Hijiribashi in Ochanomizu, along with the public plazas that were laid out nearby; and particularly the plaza at the base of Sukiyabashi Bridge, with its ring of modern buildings and the Nichigeki Theater. The placement of architectural accents at the edge of bridges and along the waterfront is a major characteristic of Tokyo's modern urban vista. Once again, we can recognize a clear continuity in the makeup of the city.

CHAPTER THREE

The Rhetoric of the Modern City

The previous chapters of this book explained the basic formation of the high and low cities of Edo. This chapter turns to the principles and methods of urban construction used in the spatial arrangement of modern Tokyo. Here, too, my main concern is to trace historical processes and ultimately to make clear how the contemporary profile of the city came into being. From the Meiji period, Tokyo modeled itself on Western cities, but we should not imagine that a foreign culture could be imported systematically and accepted in its entirety. By imitative trial and error, and by interpretations and reinterpretations that often amounted to a skillful Japanization, Western urban-planning methods and architectural principles were gradually incorporated into the sturdily composed context of Edo, producing the cityscapes and spaces of Tokyo. To understand the workings of contemporary Tokyo, therefore, we must first grasp the basic arrangement of Edo and then examine the mechanisms of urban formation that were elaborated in the modern—that is, post-Meiji — city. In this way, I hope to illuminate the special characteristics of the urban spaces of both Edo and Tokyo.

The Urban Sense of Scale The first thing that forms our impression of a city is the sense of scale that its spatial orientation creates. Edo-Tokyo's sense of 119

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scale contrasts in two ways with that of Western cities. Consider, first, the magnitude of the city. Located at the tip of the Musashino plateau overlooking Tokyo Bay, Edo-Tokyo developed in relation to grand natural surroundings. The gentle undulation of its topography and its bodies of water, vegetation, land use, and cultivation patterns — all these factors converged to produce a composition of harmonious beauty. From days of old, Japanese regarded and worshiped their mountains as the enshrined spirits of gods. Mount Fuji and Mount Tsukuba, looming far in the distance, maintained a strong presence in the city dwellers' consciousness both as geographical orientations and as repositories of symbolic meanings. Not so in Europe. There, an aerial drawing of a city may show the surrounding mountains, but when the focus is on urban space as seen from the inside, it is rare indeed for mountains to be included, particularly as symbolic objects. Once within the city walls, one is surrounded by artificially created urban space, cut off from nature; human-made edifices create what urban beauty there is. In Japanese cities, the urban interior and the expansive natural landscape outside often interact on close and intimate terms. As depicted, for example, in Hiroshige's Meisho Edo hyakkei (One hundred showplaces in Edo), Mount Fuji enhanced many Edo cityscapes. Consider, for instance, Hiroshige's depictions of Nihonbashi, Sakurada-mon, Ekoin, and, most famous of all, Surugacho, a thriving shopping quarter frequented by the city's commoner population; note how Mount Fuji towers in the background (Fig. 44). After the Meiji Restoration, at the height of the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment, Hiroshige III employed exactly the same method of composition in his equally famous treatment of the same space; only now, in place of Mount Fuji, the Mitsui-gumi Building, famous for its blending of Japanese and Western architectural styles, towers over the scene. Kirishiki Shinjiro has reconstructed old maps to present an interesting thesis: the Nihonbashi Honcho area was divided into sections that were aligned perfectly to allow a view of Mount Fuji. In the same way, the Toricho area, which lies precisely between two of the busiest districts — Nihonbashi and Kyobashi—was built in orientation to Mount Tsukuba. Urban planning in any period requires a starting point. As city planners divide a city into sections, they must seek a basis for the orientation of their divisions. In cities based on the ancient jobo system, such as Kyoto and Nara, the divisions followed two principles—first, of coordi-

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44. Hiroshige, Surugacho.

nating north-south and east-west axes; and second, of a correspondence with four gods, as elaborated in yin-yang precepts. But in Edo, despite its grid-shaped divisions, the low city (excluding the Koto district, which was developed later) deviated widely from both the north-south and the east-west axis. One possible explanation may lie in the original topography of the land on which the castle-town of Edo was constructed. Into the port of Edo (on present-day Tokyo Bay) ran a number of streams and rivers such as the Shakujii River, which formerly mean-

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dered among the foothills of Mount Kanda on the northern edge of the city. Some of these rivers, it is believed, were incorporated into the two canal systems (the Higashi-horidome and Nishi-horidome canals) of the Isecho area, one of the most important distribution centers in Edo. The fact that the area around Honcho was divided into grids in perfect alignment with these canals suggests that the first principle in Edo's urban planning was to accommodate the lay of the land.1 When such land allotments also produced a symbolic configuration of urban avenues oriented toward Mount Fuji, Edo's city planning was doubly blessed. The physical regularity arising from the contours of the land, and the symbolic image of the city—happily for us, these two factors merged to determine the divisions of the low city. Thus, the organization of Edo was conceived on a scale that encompassed both its immediately surrounding topography and its wider natural environment. Distant vistas were recognized as decisively important elements. In panoramic representations of the city, for example, faraway elements such as Mount Fuji and Mount Tsukuba were often depicted in exaggerated form, as if to pull them into the immediate vicinity. Conversely, by climbing to the top of the Musashino plateau, which protruded over the adjacent low-city streets, and looking out from the scattered hilltops or tree-shaded temple precincts beyond the sea of roof tiles, a person could gaze out at the sweeping tides of Tokyo Bay. There are eight such hills in Tokyo today, known since the Edo period as shiomi-zaka, or "tide-viewing hills" (Fig. 45).2 Although the city of Edo as a whole manifested this spectacular sense of scale, its interior spaces—where the residents pursued their everyday lives — were governed by a totally different principle. Edo's urban space was divided into a network of multilayered units whose scale was more refined and more human as it grew closer to the daily lives of the city's people. Such a complicated spatial arrangement was necessary, first of all, for the defense of the castle-town, the seat of the shogunal government. The whole city space was partitioned both functionally and visually, not only by the several concentric moats encircling the casde but also by right-angled corners and staggered rectangular strips of land (thirty-six in all) intended to cut off the flow of traffic. In addition to its strategic function, this urban system imposed on the residents the principle of separate and independent living, creating markedly distinct ways of life for the various city districts. This was particularly true in the low city, the commoner section; in the delta area, especially, canals and moats constructed primarily for defensive purposes formed a number

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furti

45. Tide-viewing hills. Edo meisho zue (Edo's landmarks, illustrated).

of island-like divisions. These islands call to mind the city of Venice, where the spatial autonomy of each island creates a single unit, both for livelihood and for human relations.3 The islands of low-city Edo were similar. Even though the city's space was planned according to a grid pattern, it was not simply a monotonous continuation of uniform units; instead, space was apportioned island by island, each with a personality of its own. In Edo, moreover, individual neighborhoods were separated from one another by high wooden gates. As shown in Hiroshige's woodblock print (Fig. 44), the view of even the straightest city thoroughfare was usually blocked by a

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number of gates, which functioned as apparatuses for partitioning space. The view was further interrupted by innumerable signboards on either side, along with fire watchtowers and makeshift barbershops doing business on the street. Edo's streets, even the major ones, were never intended to have the vista effect achieved by the somewhat ostentatious and authoritative thoroughfares of European cities, such as the avenues of Baroque-period Rome or the Champs Elysees of Paris. The wooden gates of Edo (and those of other casde-towns throughout the country) were closed at night, making it possible to keep a tight rein on the commoner population. But they also ensured order: the streets were amazingly safe. Admittedly, the gates were integral to the establishment of the feudal order under the shogunal regime, but they also produced a spatial unity within a confined area, binding the residents of each district into a coherent social organization. Not only were Edo's major thoroughfares sectioned off by gates; the districts so created were laced with narrow alleyways, each lined with innumerable row houses that provided commoners with spaces for everyday life. At the furthest end of such backstreets, one often found an Inari fox god temple, providing a spiritual symbol for the residents; it also prevented the alleyway from becoming too unsanitary because of a lack of vital sunlight and ventilation.4 Even at the built-up heart of the city, designs displayed a sensitivity to what Maki Fumihiko has called "hidden depth." This, too, was peculiar to cities in the "wood-based" culture zone, something not encountered in European cities whose "hard" streets are lined with stone buildings sharing a common wall. The inhabitants of row houses ranged from carpenters, plasterers, fish vendors, and grocers, to physicians, palm readers, and calligraphy teachers; after the Meiji Restoration, new groups of urban dwellers, such as factory workers and low-wage whitecollar workers, also made their homes in the backstreets. At the entrance to the alley, a wooden wicket was placed, clearly demarcating the main street (public) from the backstreet (semi-public) spaces. Also at the entrance, where the traffic was heaviest, signboards and nameplates were placed by people engaging in small businesses in the back (Fig. +6). In such backstreets, not only could landlords and tenants form a trusting relationship, but tenants themselves lived with one another on the most intimate neighborly terms. Thus, rather than being dominated by one large-scale public plaza, often considered in Europe to be the center of urban unity and autonomy, rank-and-file urban society in Edo was sprinkled with numerous

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46. Entrance to an alley. XJkiyodoko. Collection of Yoshida Koichi.

minute, backstreet open spaces. In Edo, it was in such micro-spaces that a certain degree of self-government took shape; it was in these same back alleys that the foundation of stable society was laid. To draw a schematic comparison: we have here two "ideal types," one a "plaza society," the other a "backstreet society." Whereas the former is composed monolithically around the center of society, the stability o f the latter depends on the consolidation of innumerable communities at the lower end of society. The contrasting principles of organization upon which the two societies rest are reflected in their urban forms. Such backstreet-oriented spaces, together with a way of life typical of the low city, still exist in some neighborhoods of Tokyo. In the NegishiShitaya area of Taito Ward, along the old Oshu Highway, for example, one can still find, behind the main streets, alleys and row houses that retain much of the flavor of the E d o and Meiji periods. 5 Historians have

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noted that living conditions in the commoner quarters of central Edo were dreadful; shabby tenement houses were jam-packed into alleys no more than a yard wide, from which no one could see the sky.6 But the alleyways of the present-day Negishi-Shitaya area—located slighdy away from the center of the city—are different. Most commoner sections in this area, with their large merchant houses and back-alley row houses, date to the Edo period, and the relationship between alleys and row houses seems almost unchanged. Most backstreets in this region today have a width of about ten feet, adorned here and there with potted plants. With time, the row houses have taken on a more convenient, livable shape and size. The old one-story structures, a norm until the mid- to late nineteenth century, were replaced in the late 1910s by two-story houses that created more living space. With the expansion of the city's water and gas supply system after the 1923 earthquake, there was no longer any need for kitchens to face the alleyway; they were replaced by front entrances with handsome lattice-work. By preserving the alley spaces and at the same time improving the functions of the row houses, it has been possible to secure a fairly highquality environment for everyday living even in the densely populated low city. Tokyo's backstreets, sporting nicknames like "Cheerful Alley," have managed to preserve a strong communal unity centering on the Inari temple located in their innermost recesses. Such alleys guarantee a peaceful and highly livable space because they are immune not only to motor vehicle traffic but also to big-city crime. Every corner is kept spotless, totally free of trash, and decorated with plants; here, the residents spare no effort in preserving their common environment. Through backstreets known only to neighborhood people, homemakers can go shopping without once encountering a car. But the real winners, perhaps, are the children who have ingeniously transformed the variously shaped spaces between the alleyways into their own playgrounds. Here is a place for a safe and comfortable life, an environment inconceivable in Western cities, plagued as they are by security problems. Lee O-Young has pointed out that the Japanese tend to miniaturize everything and discover beauty in scaled-down objects.7 Indeed, to find comfort in a compacdy unified space is a peculiarity of the Japanese. So it is that the scale of Japanese cities is brought down to an appropriately "human" level, allowing the people living there to feel setded and comfortable. Whereas European cities are often pierced by straight, broad avenues originally laid out to accommodate horse carriage traffic, the urban space of Edo was designed for the flow of water and foot traffic. Although there was some reliance on forms of land transportation such

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as ox-drawn carriages, by and large the conveyance of goods into and out of Edo depended on water navigation. The design of the city was therefore envisioned from a viewpoint that was relatively low, and slow in movement. This fact, together with a preference for minutely divided spaces, resulted in an urban pattern that was both refined and sensitive to the smallest detail. For this reason, the exterior of Japanese townhouses is often more delicate and sophisticated than the interior of houses in other countries. Given this precise and skillful arrangement of space, it should come as no surprise that much attention was paid in Edo to "close-up" views within the city. City making in Edo produced a dual perspective: while the city as a whole was conceived on a grand scale, everyday life was treated on a scale that was much closer to hand and more attentive to detail. In Edo, both "distant" and "close-up" views were given their due—and splendidly so. Present-day Tokyo has lost many of the distant views it inherited from Edo, mainly because of air pollution and the proliferation of skyscrapers throughout the city. Both Mount Fuji and the tides of Tokyo Bay have long since disappeared from the city's scenery. Even Tokyo Tower, a modern-day landmark, is visible from an increasingly limited number of locations. At the same time, as automobiles have replaced foot traffic as the major means of urban transportation, people have been deprived of the opportunity to walk the city streets. As a consequence, architectural designs have also ceased to show any concern for refined details, putting more and more emphasis on conspicuousness andflashiness.Deprived of both distant and close-up views, Tokyo has turned itself into a city of only midrange views, uniform and without complexity. Perhaps this is why Tokyo, like other Japanese cities, has become so boring. Thus, we are brought to the question: how did Tokyo, endowed originally with such a unique sense of scale, change its appearance with the influx of European architecture and urban ideas that began in the Meiji period? Mori Ogai's Maihime (The dancer) contains a passage in which the protaganist Ota Toyotaro, after arriving in Berlin, finds himself standing on Unter den Linden Boulevard. The critic Maeda Ai quotes this passage in his analysis of the kind of culture shock a Japanese might have experienced uponfirstcontact with an urban space defined by baroque vistas.8 Ogai's Japan knew no such boulevard, no such monumental space designed to produce a vista effect. The rows of pillared brick buildings in the Ginza, a showcase of the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment modeled after London's Regent Street, brought a new awareness of urban space, as numerous contemporary representations in color prints

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attest. But even the streets of the Ginza fell short of the effect a baroque vista is expected to create. Take, for example, the cherry and pine trees planted between the pavement and the sidewalk. If anything, their spreading branches made it impossible to achieve the effect of a strictly European-style vista. The buildings themselves were freely remodeled by different owners, and their exteriors soon reflected a chaotic variety, further destroying the image of orderly city streets. Nevertheless, the urban rebuilding of modern Tokyo continued apace. First, as part of the effort to transform the premodern castle-town into a more functional, more modern capital, the many layers of boxshaped or curved streets gave way to a new road system that ensured the smooth flow of traffic between the inside and the outside of the city. The wooden gates partitioning one section from another were also torn down. During the mid-Meiji years, major streets were both repaired and widened under an officially planned urban renewal project said to be inspired by Haussmann's plans for Paris. These projects introduced a new sense of scale to Tokyo's major avenues, radically altering the city's appearance. Lamenting the destruction this urban reorganization caused and surveying the signs of life remaining from the old city, Nagai Kafu devoted his Hiyorigeta (Clogs for bad weather) to a superb cultural criticism of modern Tokyo. Offended and disgusted by the constant din of construction and destruction along Tokyo's major avenues, Kafu was drawn instead to the low-city alleyways that lay hidden in their shadows. It was here, he said, that "the indigent make their homes even now as in ages past. . . . Both the emptiness of a humble abode and the peacefulness of the simple life pervade the atmosphere." Life in backstreets, Kafu insisted, was not only " a world unto itself, and unconnected to the city striving to make itself respectable"; it was also "a novel-like world that evokes seriously comic sentiments in us amid the indescribable sadness of life." This was an attractive micro-world, space packed with living feelings: "Its downright homely sentiments and downright homely way of life come together in every object in the alley—latticed sliding doors, wooden ditch covers, clothes-drying decks on the roof, wooden gates, fence-top spikes. One must admit that the backstreets constitute a world of artistic harmony born amid confusion." The backstreet space Kafu so admired was home for the most ordinary people in the low city before the great earthquake of 1923. According to maps produced in the period prior to Tokyo's lot adjustments, a network of backstreets spread behind the major avenues,

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47. Ministry of the Interior poster arguing for the necessity of street reallotment.

preserving Edo's basic urban organization. But in the eyes of the government, these alleyways spelled both health and fire hazards and seemed no more than premodern relics that should be eliminated. Thus, street replanning after the earthquake aimed not only to widen old narrow streets and lay out new ones, but also to remove row houses and the rear alleys on which they stood. Faced at first with tenacious resistance from alley dwellers, the Ministry of the Interior's Reconstruction Bureau produced a number of posters emphasizing the unsanitary and dangerous conditions of the backstreets and arguing the urgency of street reorganization (Fig. 47). The very need for such an effort attests to the depth of the low-city people's attachment to the backstreet spaces that had long been their real homes.

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In the end, the government's effort succeeded, and street reorganization plans were carried out in many areas devastated by the earthquake. Neady arranged city districts emerged, along with widened main streets and a radical reduction in the number of alleyways. The elimination of "interior" spaces, however, forced the sights and smells of everyday life, hitherto confined to the backstreets, out onto the main avenues of the low city. Laundry and potted plants lining the main streets came to define a uniquely low-city atmosphere. Thus, street replanning resulted in the privatization, or "alleyization," of the main streets. This privatized open space displays the vibrant, living feelings of the low city.

Underground Streets as Neo-Alleys District and street replanning created a number of wide, straight avenues modeled after European designs. But a question still remains: did such splendid thoroughfares bring delight to modern Japanese, who still possessed a traditional sense of space? They did not seem to. In the West, urban streets and squares thronging with offices, stores, restaurants, and apartment buildings have become the focus of activity where citizens willingly gather. But not in Japan. Here, because of the sharp rise in land prices, the main streets in all major cities and especially in Tokyo have metamorphosed into spaces reserved for business activity, depriving people of places for relaxation. It is the backstreets that contain bustling, if somewhat disorderly, urban spaces overflowing with activities and dense with human sentiments. This is indeed a curious, but nonetheless common, phenomenon in the Japan of today. The city of Osaka, for example, boasts Mido Suji Boulevard, a resplendent product of the modern urban planning introduced and executed by the progressive mayor Seki Hajime early in this century. The boulevard, adorned with lines of trees and the best of modern office buildings, nearly makes us feel as if we were in a European city. The actual fact, however, is that there is much more to Osaka than this street. Most urban activities are concentrated in Shinsaibashi Suji, a narrow backstreet arcade to the east of Mido Suji that presents a sharp contrast to the modern boulevard. This narrow arcade has provided the city with its most thriving business and shopping district ever since the Tokugawa period. The two streets run parallel to each other and function together to form the core of the city. Such a phenomenon is not unique to Osaka, but is typical of many other modern Japanese cities.

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In modern times, with urban activities increasing by leaps and bounds, city life could no longer be contained within the minutely divided spaces of a city such as Edo. Yet it is impossible to assign every single aspect of human activity performed within a city to spaces reserved only for grand public occasions. City spaces must be arranged in close relation to our bodily senses. Perhaps this is why the Ginza's backstreets have recendy begun to attract so much attention. Tokyo is said to be going through a slow-growth phase. Even so, urban rebuilding continues, obliterating one after another all disorderly and vulgar elements from the surface of the city. It can be no simple matter to wipe out all the undesirable spaces (what one might call the guts) of the city, closely connected as they are to human desires buried deep in the unconscious. Such spaces, usually found in alleys surrounded by highrises, come to life as the nocturnal curtains fall. In the Ginza, for instance, there are fifty-five alleys within the eight blocks to the west of Showa Dori. 9 Although the main boulevard may be lined with skyscrapers, the spaces between them are threaded with alleyways, each packed with bars and restaurants. Here, where no cars intrude, people can feel genuinely at home. Of late, we have also seen that in areas popular among young people — Omotesando in Harajuku, or Shibuya's Koen Dori—the really "hot" boutiques, cafe-bars, and restaurants tend to be found along closed and narrow backstreets such as Takeshita Dori in Harajuku, and Spain Hill in Shibuya (Figs. 48 and 49). At the same time, the modern city continues to grow relendessly, thriving on one "cruel" remodeling plan after another. Whole city blocks are often covered by one huge building, leaving neither interstices nor space to the rear. The word town once connoted streets defined by houses with storefronts, which created a confused—but nevertheless unified — space. In the process of urban rebuilding, these houses were replaced first by commercial structures, then by elegant office buildings. No longer is there room for the vulgar elements of the city—shops, restaurants, and other "immoral" businesses—except underground. And indeed, underground streets have come into being as a phenomenon peculiar to Japan, providing a clear functional division between the surface and the depths of the city. Such a development is beyond doubt the symptom of an urban civilization distorted by the incessant pursuit of functionality and efficiency, most clearly embodied in the principle of "all yield to the automobile" that now governs our lives. It symbolizes the defeat of the human elements of the city. From a drastically different point of view, however, we might interpret these underground streets as a mechanism that bal-

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48. Takeshita Dori.

ances the intellectual and emotional aspects of all manner of human groups. Placed at the center of the highly modernized city and hidden, intestine-like, in the belly, these underground streets keep above-ground business spaces, which are always under tight, rational control, in touch with what one might call the essence of life. Even though they could be extremely dangerous during a disaster, underground streets are very popular, and their number continues to grow. They are attractive because they provide a space where people can walk safely, free from the invasion of automobiles, but their small, maze-like spaces also appeal to the sensibility of Japanese people. It is urgent today to reconsider the logic of urban planning from such a physical perspective. A glance at the history of modern Japan makes it obvious that transplanting the European notions of artfully arranged squares and tree-lined streets directly onto Japanese soil has failed to create a space that is both interesting and full of energy. Rather, it is only in disorderly, thriving, and appropriately small spaces, where human feelings and not an expanding vista take charge, that one can find a properly Japanese urban life. The best way of making our cities attractive again, I think, is to restore such spaces—which have been either lost

49- Arcade in Asagaya.

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to modern urban reconstruction or gradually driven underground—to life on the surface. It is, after all, such humanly scaled spaces that make the city familiar and appealing for those who live in it.

The Skyline and Tower-Shaped Structures Comparisons of Japanese and Western cities frequendy note the difference in their relationships to nature. Particularly when tracing the transformation from Edo to Tokyo, it is important to focus on the city's relation to its natural environment. In Europe, the will to construct a city solely by human endeavor has been exceedingly strong. Cities were clearly separated by walls not only from nearby farming villages but also from their natural surroundings. Within this limited, extra-natural space, an artificial city made of stone and bricks was brought into being. Public spaces such as streets and plazas, especially, were the object of human effort: paved over completely, they became devoid of even a trace of the ground, to say nothing of vegetation. This process is clearly visible in the construction of the Spanish Steps in Rome. According to an old print, the original site was just an ordinary, dirt-covered hill, a vestige of natural tranquillity within the city. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the period of baroque city construction was ending, splendidly shaped yet completely artificial steps were constructed on this spot. Here we see a manifestation of a quintessential^ European way of thinking that encourages human participation in every aspect of the molding of a city, unwilling even to allow undefined spaces for trees and plants. Without such human intervention, this way of thinking seems to say, there could be no urban beauty. Such an idea can also be detected in the logically and geometrically organized gardens behind aristocrats' mansions, which are pervaded by a strong human will to conquer nature, rather than the sensitive interaction with nature seen in Japan. The tourist course in the European cities of today consists only of human-made edifices, such as cathedrals, museums, and plazas and squares. It was cities, above all, that gave birth to European culture. European citizens—particularly Italians, who have been immersed in a history that stretches back more than two thousand years — are urban to the marrow of their bones. Even when on vacation by the sea or in a mountain villa seeking release from the constraints of city life, they sense

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all too soon that something is missing and yearn for the bustle of the city. In urban centers across western Europe, public squares made an early appearance, usually punctuated by tower-shaped structures such as cathedral towers or city-hall domes that loomed overhead like symbols of the unity of civic life. They enunciated a principle of centripetal urban structure. Such a spatial hierarchy also found immediate visual expression in the clearly defined skyline. In Europe, cities existed as independent edifices. For travelers on a rural highway, a distant city skyline, with its towers rising above the houses and city walls, announced that their journey was coming to an end. The very identity of the city was linked to its skyline. The modern European sense of space must certainly have been nurtured in this fashion; in fact, present-day Europeans still emphasize the role of the skyline in urban designs. And inseparable from this principle of urban construction is the logical, unsentimental way of thinking that is characteristically European. But let this be noted: even though there is little vegetation within these stone and brick cities, interaction with nature was assured. Since European cities were initially small in scale, abundant vegetation was outside the walls, just for the looking. In contrast, Japanese cities coexisted with nature. Most Japanese villages and towns were born and grew in foothills or valleys as if inclining toward, or being cradled by, nature's bosom. Because the urban framework was nurtured by a dependence on nature, the urban vista itself became intimately bound up with largescale features of the terrain, such as the shapes of mountains, hills, and rivers. At the same time, many natural spots—the waterside, cliffs, and stretches of greenery—remained within the cities; it never occurred to anyone to expend human effort on remaking them. On the contrary, such spots became favorite subjects for artists precisely because of their naturalness. Tracing historical views of Tokyo, we rarely encounter the suggestion that urban beauty should exclude nature and consist solely of artificial objects. It was very rare indeed to see huge, artificial edifices constructed as symbolic objects within Japanese cities. In the West, towers were obviously tied to a religious worldview and to the idea of heaven; towers soaring upward bore a symbolic and spiritual value. As Magda Revesz-Alexander has argued, the Western passion for towers seems to go as far back as the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. 10 Japanese gods, on the other hand, were believed to reside anywhere and everywhere—at the end of an alley, within a house, in a

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grove, or on a hill to the rear, and virtually no towering structures were built in Japan. Temple pagodas (such as those of Ueno Kan'eiji and Shiba Zojoji, both in Tokyo) were built on hills or in foothills, half hidden between clusters of trees, even though they were obviously meant to convey some religious meaning. In a casde-town, turrets often soared into the sky as symbols of military and political power over the commoner classes. But these towers carried meanings very different from those of their European counterparts. For one thing, they were usually encircled by moats and vegetation and skillfully blended into the surrounding natural terrain. Edo Casde is a good example. When first built, the casde undoubtedly functioned as a spiritual symbol of the shogun's prowess, and as an urban vista it served as a landmark for the inhabitants of the city. But when its magnificent turrets were destroyed in the Great Meireki Fire, they were never rebuilt. By that time, the casde turrets had altogether lost their military significance, and casdetown Edo had already been transformed into a gigantic city brimming with plebeian energy. On a picture map produced during the late Edo period, we find few conspicuous edifices that could serve as city landmarks. Perhaps the only vertical elements in Edo were the fire watchtowers, which were built not only in commoners' sections but also in areas reserved for daimyo residences. Of the Tokyo cityscape in the late 1870s, Edward S. Morse wrote, "A view of Tokio . . . from some elevated point reveals a vast sea of roofs." 11 One can surmise that the city, lacking vertical elements, was dominated by horizontal lines created by rows of one- or two-story houses. The low city seemed to be spreading horizontally, packed with low-eaved houses and back-alley tenements. Here were neither soaring public monuments nor any urban skyline to speak of. An appreciation of the low city could only come by walking the city streets and getting a "worm's-eye" view. Edo certainly lacked a notable visual center. Nevertheless, the curving landscape of the Musashino uplands, together with groves of various shapes, became effective landmarks for the city's people. Old temples and shrines built on scenic green hills often gained the status of showplaces, attracting large crowds season after season. By gradually enclosing such noted places as Kan'eiji, Yushima Tenjin, Atagoyama, Zojoji, and other temples and shrines on the surrounding hills, the city defined its own image (Fig. 50). It was fairly easy for pedestrians in Edo to know where they were and what direction to take. Edo was by no means an inaccessible city.

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50. Atagoyama during the late Edo period. Edo meisho zue (Edo's landmarks, illustrated).

In contrast to Europeans, who seem unsatisfied until every space is organized around such physical objects as towers and straight streets, Japanese prefer to arrange their cities according to a clearly defined — if not necessarily visible—structure of meaning. This preference is reflected in the idea underlying a popular board game of the late Edo and early Meiji era called meisho-sugoroku (parcheesi of noted places), in which the whole city is conceived as a single cosmos whose famous places are tied together by threads of symbolic meaning. In place of a European-style skyline, Edo's harmonious beauty was created by the city's outline, the product of a variety of elements including topography, vegetation, and patterns of land use. A notion of city making akin to landscaping was at work here. As distant mountains such as Mount Fuji and Mount Tsukuba acquired symbolic meaning, they were incorporated into the city as landmarks. Thus, panoramic representations of Edo often included Mount Fuji, creating an urban image altogether different from those of European cities. The city of Edo lacked a spatial center, such as the main plaza of a

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Western city that serves as the pivotal point in a centripetal structure. Rather, Edo had a centrifugal structure in which surrounding landmarks were linked by taudy extended threads of symbolic meaning. There was a qualitative difference between the European and the Japanese experience of space. When European people sallied forth from their narrow streets into the central square, they could feel a dazzlingly sweet sense of release. There, in a "common salon" for citizens that was always open and always busding, a genuine sense of center was created not only by the symbolic tower of a city hall or a cathedral but also by the unbroken continuity of the surrounding building walls. An entirely different kind of mechanism operated in the spaces of Edo. Nagai Kafu devotes the last chapter of ClogsfirBad Weather, entided "The Vista of Fuji," to the beauty of the mountain as distantly observed from within the city of Edo. In Hokusai's Fugaku sanjurokkei (Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji), Kafu points out, more than ten spots within Edo are noted for their views of Mount Fuji. These spots ranged from places in the central Koto and Shitamachi districts to the whole high city, including Tsukudajima, Mannenbashi Bridge in Fukagawa, Honjo Katagawa, Senju, Meguro, Kanda Surugadai, Nihonbashi Bridge, the front of the Echigoya Store in Surugacho, the Honganji temple in Asakusa, and Shinagawa Gotenyama. The layout of the city of Edo produced a different sense of release: after passing through crowded city streets, people reached the top of a hill or paused on a bridge or by a stream or canal, and a vast panorama that included the distant vista of Mount Fuji suddenly unfolded before their eyes. The construction of Tokyo during the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment must be understood within the context of the premodern city or, more precisely, within the conception of the city held by the residents of Edo themselves. As Maeda Ai pointed out, the most conspicuous characteristic of Tokyo during this period was the appearance of "towers."12 The flat cityscape of roof tiles was replaced overnight by a proliferation of towers. Government offices, university and school buildings, the Kankoba Exhibition Hall (a facility for the display and sale of the goods of "civilization and enlightenment"; Fig. 51), warehouses adjacent to commoners' houses, and even brothels began to boast towers atop their roofs. It was as if people, released from the architectural restrictions of the premodern era, suddenly realized that building towers into the sky was not merely a novelty but an act symbolic of the age. Coming into contact with European cities and their architecture for the first time, the Japanese of this period must have experienced

5i. Kankoba Exhibition Hall with tower. Shinsen Tokyo meisho zue (New selection of Tokyo landmarks, illustrated).

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a series of culture shocks. It is not difficult to imagine that one such shock came from their first view of the domes and towers that soared over the center of European cities. These magnificent silhouettes and the overarching skyline must have captivated the hearts of Meiji people, leading them to attempt to embody in domes and towers their ideals of civilization and enlightenment. They began to adopt a totally alien culture, using European cities as a model, and the modernization of Tokyo proceeded along what was a logical course. This process began with a relatively simple phase of imitating or learning "parts" alone. Eventually, however, it focused more on the "whole," as knowledge of European urban design and architectural principles deepened and the general consciousness of society changed and matured with economic growth. Imitations came first of architectural details, next of the shape of whole buildings, then of the arrangement of buildings within a lot and the relationship of those buildings to each other, and finally of urban space itself— by this deepening and widening of imitative dimensions, the scenery and spatial structure of Tokyo slowly and gradually changed. The moderate, self-motivated process of change that unfolded in Tokyo during the Meiji period stands in sharp contrast to the kind of modernization or Westernization that other Asian or Arab cities were compelled to undergo as colonial cities. Such cities were often divided into two clearly separate, segregated sections—a traditional or ethnic section for natives, and a modern section for Westerners—which were set against one another as black to white. In Tokyo heterogenous cultural elements aggressively combined to create an amalgam of manyhued neutral shades. It would not have been easy to Westernize the whole city at a single stroke. Instead, Tokyo began with individual buildings while keeping the structure and context of old Edo intact. (There were some exceptions to this pattern, such as Brick Town in the Ginza, which was designed from the start entirely in Western style by foreign architects. But even in such cases, the realization of the design entailed some degree of transformation along Japanese lines.) Put differently, what is called "the ground" in Gestalt psychology was left untouched while the design of "figures" was given broad latitude to reflect individual will. In this context, towers became the perfect symbol of enlightenment. Rising out of the still-vital urban context of old Edo, the towers became all the more conspicuous as landmarks. The gigantic towers of Tsukiji Hotel (built in 1868 for visiting foreigners) and the Mitsui-gumi Head-

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quarters Building (later the First National Bank) became the two most representative landmarks in Tokyo. Only in Meiji-era Tokyo, in this particular spatial and temporal framework, could structures possessing such unique profiles have come into existence. Most of the popular buildings and landmarks of civilization and enlightenment made their entrance as part of the story of old Edo, a story set on water. Most large-scale, Western-style structures at the beginning of the modern period were built on the sites of former daimyo residences occupying scenic locations near the water, along a canal or at the mouth of the Sumida River, for example. As the only expansive spaces in the densely populated low city, these were the sites where innovatively designed buildings could attract the widest possible attention. As Edo's urban economy grew, its water- and riverfront spaces thrived and came to house a diversity of businesses, ranging from commercial and distribution facilities to teahouses, restaurants, and other pleasure establishments that took advantage of the scenic beauty of their locations. The traditional architectural structure of the teahouses was incorporated directly into the design of the Tsukiji Hotel, a two-story building in colonial style with verandas in front to maximize the view of Tsukiji Cove. Similarly, the Mitsui-gumi Headquarters Building rose near the water, at the foot of Kaiunbashi Bridge just off the Nihonbashi River, a major artery for the distribution of goods. At the beginning of the Edo period, this particular corner site was occupied by the mansion of Mukai Shokan, shogunal commissioner of ships, who supervised the comings and goings of ships on the river. Because locations near bridges had been among Edo's most vital points, where the busde of the city life concentrated, they provided perfect places for the construction of modern towers. As Hatsuta Torn has pointed out, the originality in the design of these buildings led to truly exceptional structures.13 The soaring towers, ostensibly a symbol of Western architectural principles, actually reflected a combination of Western and Japanese styles, which emphasized, if anything, the image of a traditional casde turret. Many architectural masterpieces of this time reflected the plurality of demands growing out of a mixture of old and new values, in which an admiration for Western structures signaling a new epoch coexisted with an unwillingness to discard trust in casde architecture as a symbol of stable social status. Thus, buildings appeared in Tokyo that created new landmarks unique to and symbolic of their age; at the same time, they transformed people's perspectives of the city itself. A glance at maps and woodblock prints of the Edo period is enough to show that the skillful management

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52. Ministry of Finance (built in 1872), one of Tokyo's new showplaces. Horikoshi Saburo, Meijishoki noyofil kenchiku (Western-style architecture of the early Meiji period).

of vistas was a talent peculiar to the Japanese. Consider the roles that buildings played in these maps and prints. It was extremely rare for one particular building to be singled out as a symbolically loaded object. Rather, buildings were placed within a complex environment of surrounding natural and artificial elements — elements such as canals and bay waters in urban sections, or hills, groves, and distant mountain ridges in suburban areas. A unified world was created by a dexterous handling of the elements in the overall scene, with buildings just one part of a harmonious whole and with no named author or architect in the modern sense. In contrast, many guidebooks to famous places in the Meiji era gave pride of place to huge buildings symbolizing the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment. Public buildings, schools, and other secular architecture became places of note, whetting popular enthusiasm for emblems of civilization and enlightenment. Modern buildings became landmarks, replacing temples, shrines, and water- and riverfront pleasure quarters (Fig. 52). The architecture itself became the object of popular affection as well as a major theme in visual representations. Lost in this process, however, was the traditional way of contextualizing buildings within a scene. From a larger historical point of view, the transformation in urban perspective that began in the Meiji period fore-

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shadowed the unbalanced condition of present-day Tokyo, which lacks a unity despite numerous individual instances of excellent architectural designs. What were the conditions in European cities that became a model for the modernization of Japan? Here, too, urban values changed in the course of history. Medieval society, for example, was characterized by a strong sense of civic community that encouraged merchants, artisans, and other members of society to participate in city making. There were no architects in the modern sense. The city hall, the cathedral, and other buildings important to public life towered over the scene and merged with the surrounding houses to create a harmonious world. But during the Renaissance architects and their supporting patrons emerged. Out of the humanistic culture they shared, numerous examples of splendid architecture appeared, which collectively shaped a kind of urban beauty unknown to medieval cities. As seen in Michaelangelo's Piazza Campidoglio, individual architects of the Renaissance were fully aware of the tension between architectural works and the environment (unlike modern Japanese architects who show little interest in their surroundings). The production of any work became possible only when the architect had achieved a firm grasp of the urban spatial context, including the patterns created by existing houses and other structures. Thus, Europe had a long history in which cities and architecture coexisted in a tense but harmonious balance. This kind of balance has served as the chief premise of European city construction in modern times as well. Japanese of the Meiji period could not have been expected to comprehend the urban mechanisms born of this long history, and it was therefore natural for them to be dazzled by individual works of architecture that then became symbols of the city. The appearance of "landmark buildings" in Tokyo was a new phenomenon; the very notion was unknown in Edo. But aside from a few conspicuous buildings that expressed the spirit of the new age, much of the premodern urban structure survived intact. The people of the Meiji era could not—and had no need to —change their ways overnight and begin paying attention to the total effect created by lines of buildings in shaping a district or other urban space. Their immediate concern lay in expressing the spirit of civilization and enlightenment within the framework of individual buildings and sites. Thus, the water- and riverfront towers that came onto the scene in Meiji as monuments of the new spirit were qualitatively different from the soaring domes and towers in the squares and boulevards of Europe,

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surrounded by hard, substantial buildings. Cut off from their original European context, towers in Meiji Japan were envisioned as wholly independent elements and played an entirely different symbolic role. In the wake of the magnificent turret-like towers, numerous clock towers arrived on the scene, adorned with timepieces imported from Europe. As Hatsuta Torn has pointed out, the earlier, castle-style towers had functioned as fire watchtowers, whereas the new clock towers were more akin to their European counterparts, whose soaring vertical construction literally caused pedestrians to turn their faces to the sky. Nevertheless, the factors involved in adapting these clock towers to Japan — particularly their positions relative to buildings as a whole and their locations within the city—produced a unique spatial design and organization possible only through the transplanting of an alien element into a completely different cultural context. The clock towers of Meiji can be classified into two groups according to their uses and locations. First, clock towers were often installed in public buildings such as military barracks, government offices, and university and other school buildings. As Maeda Ai has argued, the military, the government, and the schools were the first social organizations of the period to require a disciplinary system based on fixed time. In Western cities since the middle ages, time telling had been for the most part the function of belfries and clock towers attached to public buildings. Thus, it was only natural that public buildings were the first in Meiji-era Tokyo to install clock towers. Most of these large public buildings were erected on sites once occupied by daimyo residences but later donated to the new government. During this period Tokyo did not undergo the sort of root-and-branch urban reconstruction experienced by nineteenth-century European cities, with such massive projects as Haussmann's in Paris or the Ringstrasse in Vienna. For this reason, modern Japanese government buildings and other public architecture retained many of the elements characteristic of traditional casdes and residences—vast grounds surrounded by fences, a gate, and an extended approach road; a symmetrically designed building with a tower at the center. There are differences between buildings with European-style towers (such as the Technical College Building and the Army Headquarters in the Takehashi area, both designed by European architects) and buildings with traditional watchtower-shaped structures (such as the Tokyo Medical School Building, built by Japanese artisans; Fig. 53). Nevertheless, all these buildings shared one characteristic—the method of positioning towers within the traditional framework of daimyo residences. Such a tower, which rises

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53. Building with a tower—Tokyo Medical School. Horikoshi Saburo, Meiji shoki noydfu kenchiku (Western-style architecture of the early Meiji period).

at the end of the approach, is only visible only after passing through a gate separating the entire premises from the outside. This principle confined Meiji-era public buildings within individual sites and gave them a somewhat affected—even "anti-urban"—profile. They contrast sharply with Western public architecture, which is characterized by its openness to plazas and broadways and by its active shaping of urban spaces in relation to other buildings. There exist, in short, not merely differences in the shapes of towers, but also a decisive rift between the two urban cultural systems. In Tokyo clock towers also came to be used for private-sector buildings constructed in traditional commoner sections of the city. A number of these towers rose, mostly for advertising purposes, above the godown-style houses that became popular for their fire-resistant quality during the late Tokugawa and early Meiji period (Fig. 54). This strange combination of clock towers and traditional tile-roofed storehouses eloquently expressed the Meiji merchants' curiosity and entrepreneurial ambition. The main body of the house and the upper clock tower, which was merely grafted onto the structure below, were formally and stylistically two completely different entities. The object that protruded upward from among the traditional roof tiles was truly a bizarre sight. Heedless

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54. Building with a tower—Kojima Watch Store. Tokyo shoko hakumn e (The commerce and industry of Tokyo).

of the total balance of the structure, let alone its relationship to the urban context, Meiji merchants constructed these symbols of civilization and enlightenment as if feeling their way across the threshold of the new era. In the middle of the Meiji period, towers more in harmony with buildings as a whole, more vertical in emphasis, and more European in style, began to appear. Even in private-sector construction, as understanding of Western architecture deepened, the emphasis shifted from imitating partial motifs to implementing total designs. Domes and towers began to be built in places that shared a definite set of characteristics. In general, towers constructed randomly not only lose their individual symbolic meanings but also create a cluttered, unsightly city skyline. Towers in European cities are designed and positioned in accord with the urban space as a whole; behind their construction lies the European citizens' common intention of creating a harmonious and unified skyline. As Western-style remodeling progressed in Meiji-era Tokyo, people began to ask questions concerning, for example, the most effective locations for tower construction. Corner lots at major intersections in the central city came to be favored, suggesting perhaps that European

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ways of integrating buildings into urban spaces had begun to be assimilated. Pioneers in this movement included such corner-lot buildings as the Central Post Office (1893) at the southern end of Edobashi Bridge and the Hattori Watch Building (189s) at the Ginza 4-chome intersection. But at the same time, the appearance of these buildings ushered in a very Japanese notion of "intersections as public space."

Intersections and Corner-Lot Buildings

It has often been pointed out that Japanese cities lack public plazas and squares. No European-style plazas dominated by a city hall or cathedral appear in our urban history as symbols of autonomy and communal bonds. The commanding presence of surrounding buildings in a splendidly designed urban space—such features, typical of European squares, must have astonished the Japanese of the Meiji era. Even now, architects and urban designers dream of re-creating European-style plazas and squares in Japan. But the history of modern Tokyo indicates that a number of open spaces were actually constructed and accepted enthusiastically by citizens as the "faces" of the city. As I suggested in Chapter 2, one type of open space was created at the foot of many of the city's bridges. Such areas had thrived since the Edo period as a kind of plaza, where teahouses and show tents attracted transients and free-spirited crowds. As if inheriting this historical memory, open spaces displaying the best in modern designs began to appear near bridges all over Tokyo in the Meiji period, particularly at the foot of such famous bridges as Nihonbashi, Edobashi, and Sukiyabashi. The Japanese admiration for European squares found expression in riverfront spaces whose overall spatial structure was still that of Edo. In the early twentieth century, Tokyo was being transformed from a water-oriented to a land-oriented city. This transformation brought about the construction of open spaces at crossroads, which created the new "faces" of the city. So familiar did these spaces become that popular expressions like "down at the corner" soon appeared in the city's vocabulary. This kind of urban space is to be found only in a city like modern Tokyo, the product of an interpretive translation of European elements into a traditional urban context. Since the Edo period both bridges and intersections had been considered important places within the city struc-

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ture, particularly as nodes of the transportation system. Tokyo's public spaces came into existence according to the movement and flow of people within the city and changed their locations as traffic patterns shifted. Essentially mobile in nature, they were thus different from European plazas, which steadfastly occupied the central stage of the city as if to claim that "in the beginning was the public square." A public survey of the Ginza district conducted in 1869 (on file in the Tokyo Metropolitan Archive) clearly shows that land prices near bridges and intersections were much higher than those in other areas. Because the estimates predate the construction of the Ginza Brick Town, the survey is an accurate reflection of the distribution of land values in the old city of Edo. Since the Edo period, such spaces were of high economic value because of the heavy volume of traffic, and considerable capital was invested in them during the Meiji years to create new urban spaces that were somehow akin to European plazas and squares. Let us look now at the processes by which Tokyo's corner lots were transformed into square-like open spaces beginning in the late nineteenth century. From antiquity, spaces at crossroads were important in Japanese cities, both to aid the flow of urban traffic and to attract public attention to the cityscape. An early Edo screen depicting the city (Edo zu bydbu [Folding screen-map of Edo]; Fig. 55) shows a number of casde-style townhouses (three-story buildings with towers) standing on corner lots at main crossroads. According to Tamai Tetsuo, building houses on a grand scale made it possible for influential, upper-class commoners, who participated in the construction of the city and controlled local affairs, to express the superiority of their lineage and social position.14 These ostentatious houses disappeared completely from the city of Edo after the Great Meireki Fire, when the shogun's government instituted a series of sumptuary measures including regulations of building height, ostensibly in the interest of fire safety. But corner lots continued to be highly valued. With the elaboration of a national distribution system in the second half of the seventeenth century, wealthy merchants began to build establishments on corner lots thought to possess commercial advantages. At this time, corner-lot transaction indexes became particularly high. 15 But this visual accenting of the crossroads in the cityscape was not particularly strong, compared with the effect of the earlier three-story casde-style houses built on corner lots. Most crossroads in early modern Japanese cities were located at the edge of city districts. Because of the wooden gates erected there, many of these areas were exceptional, both functionally and visually.

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55. Corner-lot architecture in the early Edo period. Edo zu byobu (Folding screen-map of Edo). Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Hakubutsukan.

In addition, the low city of E d o was divided according to a grid pattern; before the Meiji period no street crossed the city diagonally. Diagonal composition itself was highly alien to Japanese architectural methods, which were based on vertical and horizontal axes (or wooden pillars and crossbeams). Moreover, because taxes were levied on the basis o f lot widths facing the street, it was impractical to cut corners diagonally at crossroads. But conditions changed drastically during the Meiji period. The border gates were removed and streets were broadened, beginning with the major arteries. As pedestrians were replaced by rick-

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shas, horsecars, and eventually streetcars, the speed and scale of traffic changed. Land taxes began to be imposed on the size, not the width, of the lot, a development that freed corner lots for other uses. As a result, the role and significance of crossroads increased gradually within the urban space. Meanwhile, with the advent of the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment, people took to Western architecture and, watching and imitating, greedily began to adopt its elements and designs. Truly original buildings that blended Western and Japanese styles came into existence. The interests of the people of Meiji were not long confined to architectural details but extended gradually to surrounding city spaces, and in this context crossroads came to be highlighted. With the introduction of Western-style buildings during the Meiji era, we find pioneering examples of crossroads in the center of Tokyo being cut across after the manner of street corners in European cities. One of the earliest was the Central Post Office Building (see Fig. 41), located on the southern edge of Edobashi Bridge, a major node of land and water transportation since the Edo period. This unoccupied former storage site of the Fish Wholesalers' Association (popularly known as the Namadai Yashiki, or Fresh Sea Bream Mansion) was converted in 1871 into the first post office under the new government. In 1874 a new building was designed and constructed by Hayashi Tadayuki, a civil engineer of the Ministry of Finance. Most other government and public office buildings, surrounded by fences and gates, had the affected look of the daimyo residences they replaced. But the Post Office, which faced directly out onto the street to form an entire city block, created the first truly urban architecture in Tokyo. Located on the thriving Edobashi riverfront and next to the Ginza Brick Town—a civilization-andenlightenment showcase — this new Western-style building became the center of attention for passersby. Often depicted in popular prints as one of the new landmarks of Tokyo, it proved a splendid adornment of Edo's bridgeside scenery. A two-story, gabled entrance occupied the center of the building's front wall facing the Nihonbashi River. The corner closest to the bridge was cut to create a space for a porch with an arch over it: in order to take advantage of the corner lot at the foot of the bridge, the design had made daring use — though only for one specific detail—of a new, untraditional method. An early example of more systematic corner-cutting at a crossroad appeared at the Ginza 4-chome intersection, located almost at the center of the thoroughfare (Ginza Dori, or the Ginza Brick Town) that linked the heart of the city to its gateway at Shinbashi station. Running perpen-

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dicular to Ginza Dóri was a thoroughfare of increasing importance that extended from the Sukiya Gate toward Tsukiji, where both the Tsukiji Hotel and the foreign setdement were located. The many extant prints and photographs of the Ginza Brick Town, which became Tokyo's most famous landmark, provide us with detailed information about the designs of the buildings constructed at this particular intersection. Originally, Ginza Brick Town referred to the whole row of unusual brick stores along the main street, with columned porticos in front and banistered balconies on top. But only at this important intersection could one see instances of corner cutting, and of buildings approached diagonally from a cut corner. In 1874, simultaneólas with the construction of the Brick Town, the Choya Shinbunsha Building was built at the intersection's northwest corner, the site of the Hoteiya Dry Goods Store before the Meiji Restoration. Adorned with a portico and a balcony with balustrades, the building's front entrance was located at a diagonally cut comer facing the center of the intersection. Added atop the building was a triangular roof accentuating the whole design. Except for a few corners cut diagonally like this, however, the whole aspect of the street remained one of unbroken continuity, since such conspicuous elements as domes and towers had yet to be introduced. According to an 1882 color print by Hiroshige III and an 1891 lithograph, the Chüó Shinbunsha Building, similarly designed, stood at the northeast corner of the intersection (Fig. 56). It is also known that the Mainichi Shinbunsha Building was erected on the southeast corner after 1886, and the Kyobashi Bank Building at the southwest corner after 1896. But it is likely that even before these dates, the corners were occupied by buildings with diagonally cut corners. In short, the method of cutting city street corners introduced a new, hitherto unknown dimension to Tokyo's Meiji-era cityscape. Another factor that accelerated changes in Tokyo's urban vista during the late Edo and early Meiji periods was the appearance of towers. As discussed earlier, European domes and towers were designed and located to produce a symbolic effect within the whole urban space. In "civilized and enlightened" Tokyo, by contrast, towers were constructed as mere design motifs in imitation of novel Western shapes, resulting in numerous scattered tall structures erected without attention to the total context. Owing to this proliferation of towers, each devoid of symbolic content, the Tokyo skyline, far from being clearly defined, became dominated by confusion and clutter. By the middle of the Meiji era, however, clear guidelines were estab-

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56. Ginza 4-chome intersection. Ginza Dori; lithograph, 1891. Kashiwazaki Rurofunekan.

lished for choosing the sites of such tall and conspicuous structures. Increasingly, domes and towers appeared on corner lots in central urban districts. In addition to cutting corners at intersections, it became fashionable to add a dome or tower to corner-lot buildings in order to enhance the symbolic significance of the location. Perhaps Japanese builders had finally begun to understand better the European method of coordinating buildings and urban spaces. Once again, the areas at the southern end of Edobashi Bridge and at the main Ginza 4-chome intersection led the trend. First, in the Edobashi Bridge area, which came to rival the Ginza Brick Town as a business district, the Central Post and Telegraph Office Building (designed by Katayama Otokuma) was built in 1892 to replace the Central Post Office Building that had burned down in 1888. This majestic three-story brick building was authentically Western in design, its fullfrontentrance at a cut corner adorned with a magnificent clock tower. Located at the back of a T-shaped street and surrounded by rows of low buildings on the traditionally bustling Yokkaichi riverfront along the Nihonbashi River, the building's appearance was striking (Fig. 57). Meanwhile, at the main Ginza intersection, whose four corners were all cut diagonally by this time, some rather strange-looking buildings,

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57. Central Post and Telegraph Office. Shinsen Tokyo meishozue (New selection ofTokyo landmarks, illustrated).

equipped with both a dome and a tower, came on the scene. In 1894, for example, a clock tower was added to the former Choya Shinbunsha Building, now owned by the Hattori Watch Company, which had moved its headquarters from Kobiki-cho to Ginza 4-chome in 1887 (Fig. 58). The clock tower thereafter became the symbol of the Meiji-era Ginza, while the company itself developed into a major enterprise in the watch-making industry. The Hattori Watch Company Building was constructed under markedly different circumstances from the Central Post and Telegraph Office Building, which was designed by an influential government-employed architect to represent the new Meiji state. A cross between Western and Japanese styles, the watch company was designed by a private-sector architect, Ito Tamekichi. Ito had participated in the designing of Army Headquarters as an assistant to the Italian chief architect Cappelletti and later went to the United States to study earthquake-proof architecture; he also designed other famous mixed-style buildings such as the Kankoba Exhibition Hall (1904), which dominated the plaza in front of Shinbashi station. Ito created the huge building at the main Ginza intersection (formerly known as the Owaricho intersection) by adding a wooden-framed and plastered dome and a jewel-shaped belfry to the old brick Choya Shinbunsha Building. Shordy thereafter, in 1906, the high-class clothier Yamazaki

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58. Ginza 4-chome intersection during the 1910s: Hattori Watch Company (left) and Yamazaki Shoten (right). Machi: Mdji-Taishd-Showa (The city: MeijiTaisho-Showa). and Company chose the northeast corner (formerly occupied by the Chuo Shinbunsha Building) as the site for a whitewashed three-story structure with a tall tower (Fig. 58). Domed or towered buildings that were deliberately constructed on corner lots came to dominate Tokyo's skyline as new landmarks of the city. Intersections, which had been inconspicuous during the premodern era, became increasingly important elements in the cityscape, and a number of businesses vied with one another for these prime locations. Underlying the phenomenon was a surge of admiration among Meijiera Japanese for the European urban spaces they were encountering for the first time. In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European cities such as Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, many domes and towers were constructed on corner lots, modeled after Rome's Piazza del Popolo with its radiating avenues and twin-domed church—both a product of urban remodeling during the baroque period. Somehow to re-create such urban structures in Tokyo became a consuming ambition for people of this period. It was impossible to reproduce the Paris or Vienna cityscape exacdy in Tokyo. In Europe, towers on corner lots facing a square where different streets converged were almost always part of a larger-scale redesigning of the city. European public squares were created not only to serve as transportation centers but also to produce the greatest monu-

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59. Babasaki Dori in the Marunouchi district; the early twentieth century. Machi: Meiji-Taisho-Showa (The city: Meiji-Taisho-Showa). mental effect. By contrast, the open spaces at Tokyo's crossroads made their appearance inconspicuously because the grid-patterned road system of Edo remained untouched. This was not necessarily an unfortunate development, because Tokyo's street corners went on to become the most familiar spaces in the everyday life of the people. Clearly, individual buildings were no longer being designed as separate entities, but as part of a street or total urban space. Japanese became increasingly inclined to relate lot conditions to the total urban context in order to use them to best advantage. For this reason, the placement of symbolic domes and towers on corner lots became important. At the same time, open spaces at crossroads came to be seen as something akin to a public square. In the 1910s the concept of city squares was formally introduced to Japan, but even earlier, there seems to have been at least an interested awareness of European-style urban spaces. Thanks to this awareness, symbolic structures were built on corner lots, producing many special urban spaces. Among them, Babasaki Dori in the Marunouchi district deserves special mention (Fig. 59). At the left-hand corner of this "One Block London," with the imperial palace in the background, stood the Mitsubishi No. 2 Building (1895, designed

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by Josiah Conder and Sone Tatsuzo), its front entrance enclosed within a cylindrical corner structure and topped with a gracefully shaped dome. At the right-hand corner stood the brick Tokyo Chamber of Commerce Building (1899, designed by Tsumaki Yorinaka), whose innovative design used a sharply cut corner to emphasize a diagonal perspective alien to the traditional urban structure of Tokyo. These two buildings, though stylistically different, not only held similar relationships to the streets and exterior spaces in general but were also the very expression of a will to form new urban spaces. With these pioneering examples, corner-lot buildings grew in popularity. Especially toward the end of the Meiji period, many buildings were designed to emphasize their towers, including two structures with soaring Western-style clock towers. First, the Yomiuri Shinbun Building (1908), which occupied one of the Brick Town buildings on a street corner near Kyobashi Bridge (Fig. 60). A columned third floor with a huge Western-style clock on top was added to the original building, and the main entrance was moved to the corner closest to the bridge. This gigantic building was a noted ornament of the Kyobashi neighborhood in the early 1900s. Second, the Nishiura China Building was constructed on a riverfront corner lot near Imagawabashi Bridge in the Hongincho 2-chome area. A wooden Western-style building with two stories and a basement, it was designed by the company president, who had a head full of original ideas, and built by a master builder, Ito Hanzo. This innovative and brilliant structure attracted much attention. The fact that both buildings were constructed near bridges confirms the importance in Tokyo of spaces near water. In addition, department stores began to move into the central part of the city in the early 1900s, as if to follow the example set by the Kankoba Exhibition Hall, an extremely popular commercial establishment for the display and sale of fashionable goods, whose WesternJapanese-style building had become a symbol of the new cityscape. Most of these stores also occupied corner lots at crossroads and, in like fashion, became new symbols of the city. Among them, the Shirokiya Dry Goods Store in Nihonbashi most powerfully informed the popular image of corner-lot structures. In 1911, the store not only installed elevators (the first in a dry goods store) but also added a tower (designed by Ito Kichitaro) to the original threestory structure of 1903. Perhaps because the store sought to preserve its image as a traditional dry goods store with a venerable history, this remodeled building retained much of the traditional Japanese architectural style, as can be seen in the shape of the tower itself, the Chinese-

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60. Yomiuri Shinbun Building. Hirano Mitsuo, Meiji-Tokyo tokeito ki (A study of clock towers in Meiji Tokyo).

style gabled roof over the main entrance, and the rows of double gables over the sides of the building facing the street (Fig. 61). In 1918, this building was replaced by a completely new corner structure, this time in an authentic neo-Renaissance style. Stylistically, the new, modern building signaled a radical departure from the older one, but in the relation between structure and street, and in its urban scenic organization, the fundamental concept of a corner-lot building remained essentially unchanged. A t about the same time, the Matsuzakaya Dry Goods Store under-

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61. The Shirokiya Dry Goods Store during the 1910s. Machi: Meiji-TaishoShowa (The city: Meiji-Taisho-Showa).

took the renovation of its flagship store at the Ueno Hirokoji intersection, creating a splendid corner-structure with a soaring cylindrical tower. By the early 1900s, when the method of placing visual accents on street-corner lots and employing diagonal approaches to corner buildings had become thoroughly popularized, even traditional stone godown-type houses began to display corner-cut front entrances. This change in attitude toward the utilization of street corners eventually produced Buddhist temples with diagonal approaches. But not all corner-lot buildings created during the Meiji years employed the corner-cutting technique. As seen in both the Nishiura China Building and the Azabu Ward Office Building (1909), towers or cylindrical porches often extended outward onto street corners. These protrading structures did not reflect a new concept of urban planning that took into consideration the total transportation system of the city, but rather came into existence as new stylistic elements for individual buildings in already advantageous locations. Most of the structures therefore failed to enhance the unity and harmony of the urban space. Nevertheless, each boasted a richly original architectural design unseen in any European city.

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A number of urban reorganization projects were carried out during the Meiji period, including the construction of the Ginza Brick Town, the readjustment of town lots, and the planning of a large-scale civic center in the Hibiya area (by Hermann Ende and Wilhelm Bockmann, only partially completed). But it was not until the 1910s that European methods of urban planning and construction were systematically introduced and genuinely understood in Japan. Whereas the focus earlier had been on transforming Tokyo into a capital fit for a civilized and enlightened country and producing new urban vistas at the center of the city, during the 1910s and 1920s a new phase of modernization and Westernization arrived, with greater emphasis on building urban spaces for the sake of the populace. In this context, squares came to be recognized as symbolic spaces within the city. At this time, especially during the period of rebuilding after the earthquake of 1923, open spaces at crossroads came to be regarded as public squares that were an important component of urban design.

Public Buildings in Traditional Residential Style

The urban structure of Edo-Tokyo must seem elusive to the mind trained in the ways of European rationalism. Walking at ground level, we are but rarely treated to the kind of unified urban space that could be framed in a renaissance scenograph. Nor do we find any baroque-style, vista-oriented space, pierced at the center by an axis with a symbolic monument at its far end. Even from above, one can discern no clear center that unifies the surrounding shapes geometrically. There was no clear logical system in Edo that would bring a variety of elements together into a single whole as in a European city. The city possessed a different system—an organic and flexible system unseen in Europe. In Edo, parts were not subordinated to a totalizing logic. Rather, the whole city, like a mosaic or a kaleidoscope, sparkled with myriad different images created by the particularity of individual locales, their terrain, and their histories. The fundamental nature of the city did not change even after the Meiji period. Tokyo experienced no daring remodeling that ignored its terrain or the existing urban structure. The transformation of Tokyo into a modern capital took a course completely different from that of Paris, which went through Hauss-

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mann's massive rebuilding. In Tokyo, instead, individual places or lots became self-contained litde worlds in which the dramas of modernization were performed. The whole city took shape only as an accumulation of individuals' or groups' activities. Take, for example, the concepts of axial and symmetrical structures, both long-accepted principles of urban construction in modern Europe. These concepts were aggressively introduced to individual lots and buildings in Tokyo, especially to university campuses and government office buildings, but no such attempt was made at the level of the whole city. Thus, designs reflecting new values were pursued within the confines of individual lots, whose sum constituted the city of Tokyo. Such a pursuit not only followed a course determined by the specific conditions of each lot but also incorporated many of the memories and meanings that had accumulated there. These localities constituted the whole city of Tokyo. The former daimyô residences, in particular, may be seen as mosaic pieces accumulating layers of new meaning as they faced the successive transformations of the modern age. Those in the central part of the city are especially important, because most of them were turned into government offices and public buildings noted for their traditional residential designs. During the early years of the Meiji period, the central part of Tokyo was remade into a modern civic center by applying European architectural methods directly to the old urban structure of Edo. But the product of this application was a cityscape unknown to any European city. Not only was the architecture of the period an eclectic mixture of Western and Japanese styles. More important, a continuity from Edo existed in the fundamentals of urban building, including the basic frames of reference for lot shapes and uses as well as for urban spaces in general. The uniqueness of Edo's architectural and urban culture lay above all in the fact that even the central parts of the city were occupied by huge residential lots. N o such phenomenon is found in any present-day city other than Tokyo. With these general observations in mind, let us consider the relationships between architecture and urban spaces in early modern Tokyo, especially in comparison to their ostensible models in Europe. In Europe the façades of mansions in urban areas, and even of villas outside cities, often face directly onto public streets and squares. The Versailles palace of Louis XIV, for example, confidently turns its magnificient face toward a public square. In Europe, spectacular building fronts form a continuous line and participate actively in the formation of urban public space.

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The planning of the Ringstrasse in nineteenth-century Vienna, for example, provided ample room for open and green zones; groups of largescale buildings, whether public offices or multiple residences, stood bare of protective walls and looked out directly on public spaces. European architecture was conceived as an integral part of the city from the very beginning. Features such as private front yards, fences, and gates were generally limited to nonurban architecture—to villas and detached palaces in the country or upper-middle-class homes in the modern suburbs. In contrast, traditional Japanese cities characteristically combined two coexisting modes of living: that of the commoners, with its focus on "establishing a shop," and that of the ruling warriors, with its desire to "establish a grand residence." These two modes were handed down without modification to Tokyo of the Meiji period. Eloquent testimony to this inheritance comes to us in a number of representative structures that appeared in the Nihonbashi area during the 1870s. Most notable was the First National Bank Building at the approach to Kaiunbashi Bridge. This mixed-style building, with a castlelike tower on top of a two-level colonial-style structure, was one of Tokyo's premier symbols of civilization and enlightenment. But the main building was not actually open to urban space. It displayed a number of typical Meiji-style innovations, especially in the configuration of the fences, whose top part was made somewhat open so that the tower inside could be clearly visible from outside. But the building itself was guarded by a fenced-in garden and a solid and imposing gate, thus retaining much of the traditional mentality of "establishing a grand residence." Such a spatial arrangement was the unavoidable result, perhaps, of constructing a new building on a site formerly occupied by a daimyô residence. An equally unusual arrangement can also be seen in the Rice Trading Center and the Fifth National Bank Building in the Kakigarachô area. Such modern, and alien, designs also forced their way into commoner districts, where traditional façades stretched in rows along the street. Take, for example, the Mitsui-gumi Headquarters Building (Fig. 62), built in 1879 in the Surugachô area to replace its old headquarters at Kaiunbashi Bridge. (This had been turned, by government order, into the First National Bank.) Although the new building closely approximated a streamlined, more Western style of architecture by shedding much of the daring eclecticism that had characterized the old headquarters, its details, especially the dolphin-like figure on top of the tower, still conveyed an image of casde architecture.16

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62. The Mitsui-gumi Headquarters Building. Hiroshige III, Surugacho mitsuiginko (The Mitsui Bank in Surugacho). Tokyoto Chuo Toshokan. In addition to its stylistic peculiarities, this towering three-story building formed a strange contrast to the solid, somber line of traditional commoner houses arranged alongside. The building's main features — the gate in front, the surrounding open space, and the peripheral fences—were designed to express its prestige, but they were realized only at the expense of the scenic unity of the environment. This particular example suggests that the unique practice of building Western-style architecture in traditional residential style cannot be explained only by

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the physical continuity of the former daimyo residential lots. Rather, the practice should be placed in its own context, where a clear mode or pattern grounded in a historically formulated cultural value system was handed down even to the modern age. Let us turn now to the daimyo residences in the vicinity of Edo Castle that served as conduits for the functions indispensable to the new capital of Tokyo. After being turned over to the new government, the lots for these residences were converted, without much modification of their original sizes and shapes, into modern public facilities, including government offices, universities, and embassies. The buildings that rose in this urban context, therefore, took on a special character. Their architectural style varied, depending on the nationality of the architect: some, designed by Western architects, were authentically Western; others by Japanese architects were in mixed or more traditional Japanese style. But in the basic disposition of their buildings, gates, and fences, and also in the use of their lots in general, a commonly held notion was at work— "keeping a daimyo residence." A clearly defined pattern governed the overall visual structure of these buildings, especially in relation to lots and streets. Each building was designed in symmetry with an axial line extending from a gate, and each lot, vast and private, was surrounded by fences. In the 1870s and 1880s, the shortage of modern facilities forced the government to appropriate many preexisting structures for public use, including daimyo residences and such auxiliary buildings as gate and carriage houses (Fig. 63). Although the original buildings were gradually replaced by newer, more modern architecture, there was no fundamental change in the use of the lots themselves. Modernization or Westernization focused on a few major features instead. For example, the gatehouses along the street, which produced the closed-in feeling typical of these lots, were replaced by more open picket fences, and the gate and the front entrance were aligned on a straight axis, at the end of which stood the main building. Some Japanese-designed buildings, such as the Ministry of Finance (Fig. 52) and the Tokyo Stock Market, not only lacked an axial line but also had traditional Chinese-style gables on top of their front entrances. The introduction of picket fences gave the lot interior a feeling of more open space. These were indeed buildings of transitional design. From the European point of view, however, these residential-style public buildings represented a nonurban type of architecture rarely seen within a city. Only in a place like Tokyo, which was once a warriors' capital,

63. Ministry ofEducation, ca. 1872. Horikoshi Saburo, Meijishoki noyojn kenchiku (Western-style architecture of the early Meiji period).

64. Gakushuin School (built in 1877). Horikoshi Saburo, Meiji shoki myofu kenchiku (Western-style architecture of the early Meiji period).

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could such a peculiar, eclectic cityscape have emerged. The modernization of this vast castle-town found expression not so much in mixedstyle architectural designs as in the city's "one-of-a-kind" visual structure, which was created by the introduction of Western designs into the context of premodern, daimyo residences. The notion of appropriating premodern residences for public purposes was similarly applied to colleges and universities, as we see in the examples of the Gakushuin School in Kanda Nishikicho (Fig. 64) and the University of Tokyo Medical School in Hongo. In fact, the lucid, symbolic pattern achieved by placing a symmetrical building on an axial line extending from the gate became paradigmatic in the construction of buildings for higher education. As in the case of primary and secondary schools, clock towers stood proudly at the center of college and university campuses as symbols of "rising in the world," enhancing these institutions' already monumental presence. But these clock towers were usually placed apart, recessed on lots away from public streets, and functioned differendy from clock towers in European cities, which stood as symbols open to public space. Because of their self-completing nature, the early Meiji clock towers deepened the already serene and somber aura of colleges and universities in the eyes of ordinary people. In traditional Japanese residences, stately front entrances topped by Chinese-style gables were considered an expression of established social status. This way of thinking seems to have been present in modern-style buildings as well. Here, perhaps, lies the reason that designs emphasizing front entrances, especially those with a porch at ground level and a balcony on top, were preferred and disseminated widely. The monumental spatial organization of a building placed symmetrically at the end of a clear axial line extending from the gate was employed not only in such important facilities as government offices and universities but also in police stations and substations, ward offices, and other smallerscale local public buildings (Fig. 65). Whether Western, mixed, or thoroughly traditional in design, these local public buildings displayed one essentially identical spatial pattern. Although only a few now remain in Tokyo, many such buildings can still be found in nearby cities. The axial and symmetrical organization characteristic of postRestoration Japanese architecture was clearly an imitation of Western spatial arrangements based on the laws of perspective. But this imitation was carried out in a peculiarly Japanese manner. For example, the axial line stretching from the gate always ended at the front entrance, never extending beyond the building, as is the case with European palaces and

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65. A local public building—the Honjo police station. Shinsen Tokyo meisho zue (New selection of Tokyo landmarks, illustrated).

public buildings. The space to the rear of the building was completely released from geometrical tensions, as the many Japanese-style gardens and ponds remaining from the premodern era attest. In addition, the axial line was always confined within the lot and never extended into urban streets or squares. In redesigning Paris, Haussmann first laid out an axial line that ran through the city, placing a stately structure at the end of it to serve as a city landmark. Monumental urban design of this kind was virtually unknown in Tokyo until much later when a few examples cropped up—the area in front of Tokyo Station, the National Diet Building, and the Shotoku Memorial Museum. But none of these monumental spaces ever became the kind of thriving urban setting where people could feel at home. In Tokyo, the Western method of organizing urban space axially and symmetrically was introduced freely to individual lots separated from general public space. It was employed at will, unconstrained by surrounding conditions, and applied to public buildings throughout the country. If such a method of spatial organization had been purely Western in origin and completely alien to traditional Japanese architectural and urban principles, it would not have been disseminated so widely and in such a short span of time. May we not imagine, instead, that there was already some kind of basis in the preexisting Japanese spatial

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66. A typical shrine precinct. Edo meisho zue (Edo's landmarks, illustrated).

experience that made it easier to accept the new arrangement? Looking closely at the pictures in Edo meisho zue (Edo's landmarks, illustrated), we notice that a similar method of spatial arrangement was repeatedly used in depicting aerial views of temples and shrines (Fig. 66). In this arrangement, widely employed since antiquity for religious institutions, a straight axial line stretched from a Shinto shrine archway or from a two-story gate to a Buddhist temple all the way to a symmetrically designed main building in the back. The line sometimes continued beyond the gate, but it never reached the public streets or extended behind the main building. This was the spatial pattern that was carried out on individual lots. It is all the more astonishing to see in early Meiji photographs how most of them, whether they were the sites of temples or public buildings, displayed an almost identical distribution of gate, axial approach, and front entrance. The larger public buildings tended to be more Western in design, but they assumed basically the same frontal arrangement as the temples and shrines. These considerations lead, I think, to the following conclusion: because the axial and symmetrical organization of religious spaces had already been established and accepted by the Edo

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period, a similar—but more Western and monumental — frontal design was adapted without undue stress to such typically modern public buildings as government offices and colleges and universities. Traditional Japanese houses and other buildings for everyday use have always tended to be flat in design to allow for free extension in all directions; such Western geometrical concepts as axis and symmetry were far removed from this approach. Even in the case of residences for prestige-conscious feudal lords, placing gate houses and a front entrance on a straight line was avoided as an inappropriately direct organization of space. Religious architecture, however, was a different story. Even a small-scale temple or shrine was built symmetrically at the end of an approach extending straight from its gate. This sort of symbolic arrangement aimed at creating a special ceremonial space distinct from the secular streets and residential areas that surrounded the sacred precincts. The public buildings of early Meiji Tokyo, which were totally new social facilities needed for the management of a modern city, can be seen as symbols of a new age that was far removed from people's everyday life. It would not be strange, therefore, if the symbolic structure of temples and shrines functioned as a subliminal model for fashioning this new kind of ceremonial space. In fact, public buildings during this period did become shrines of the new age, attracting much attention as Tokyo's new landmarks in the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment. In sum, two different strands of spatial arrangement were drawn together in the process of situating newly created public offices and universities within the city: the traditional notion of "establishing a grand residence" was applied to the overall design, while the Western concepts of axis and symmetry, which have something in common with the already-familiar composition of temple and shrine architecture, were introduced only to the most public and ceremonial frontal space between the gate and entrance. In later years, when circular carriageways became popular as the number of rickshas and horse-drawn carriages increased, the visual effect created by the axial designs was drastically reduced. But the resulting composition, in which the main building lay half visible and half hidden behind trees along the carriageway, was perhaps more pleasing to the Japanese aesthetic sense. There were, in fact, quite a few cases in which asymmetrically shaped pine trees or arbors with spreading branches were planted to create an exquisite contrast between geometrical and nongeometrical designs. In time, then, a number of axially and symmetrically designed buildings adorned with soaring symbolic towers appeared in the central part

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of Tokyo. Neither lending dignity to a public square nor towering over the end of a boulevard as an urban landmark, each of these buildings acquired a self-completing form within an individual lot, where the Western spatial arrangement was realized only in miniature toward the front. These individual buildings and lots were combined like stones in the mosaic of Edo's preexisting urban context to create the uniquely shaped center of civilization and enlightenment that was early Meiji Tokyo. The result was an eclectic cityscape that enthusiastically incorporated a new profile while keeping intact both the fundamental urban structure and the traditional notion of "establishing a grand residence." In nineteenth-century European cities, individual works of architecture and urban spaces were designed together to create a total urban beauty; in Meiji Tokyo architectural design was conducted independently within individual lots, totally divorced from urban planning in general. Of course, there were a few exceptions among the projects directed by foreign engineers. The Ginza Brick Town, created by the British architect Thomas James Waters after the commoner housing originally built there was destroyed in a fire, was a unified urban space composed of rows of brick buildings with frontal porticos. In addition, drastic reconstruction projects that broke with existing urban forms were planned for areas occupied by former daimyo residences. About 1887, for example, a Kasumigaseki civic center project was proposed, based on German baroque urban planning. Reflecting the strong admiration in Japanese political circles for Germany's Iron Chancellor Bismarck, the Meiji government entrusted this project to two German engineers, Hermann Ende and Wilhelm Bockmann. The radical designs they proposed could not be realized, however, without major alterations in the urban structure Tokyo had inherited from Edo. Owing to a shortage of funds, the instability of the ground itself, and changes in political conditions stemming from a breakdown in negotiations with the Western powers to revise the Unequal Treaties, the project was only partially realized. It was limited to the construction of courthouses, the ministries of Justice and the Navy, and the temporary National Diet Building. 17 Most of these buildings, like the current Ministry of Justice building, were surrounded by fences and gates and reflected litde of the open feeling of baroque urban design. Meiji Tokyo was dotted with government offices, universities, and other public buildings equipped with fences and green gardens —a sight that can never be seen in the core districts of European cities. This particular development seems to have played a positive role in

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curbing environmental deterioration in Tokyo, but there were also negative consequences. By enclosing open spaces within fences, for example, these facilities hampered the formation of such public spaces as squares and promenades where urban life could flourish in all its variety. The links between public spaces and architecture were severed, making it impossible to create the kind of beautiful, unified cityscape one finds in Europe. Nevertheless, Tokyo came to boast a unique urban structure, with a richly verdant city center deserving of high praise. This development would not have been possible if modernization projects had totally rejected traditional views of the relationship between lot and architecture. Surveying modern Tokyo at the end of the nineteenth century, we can see that despite the numerous different and enthusiastic attempts to Westernize Tokyo, the newly created urban spaces came to assume a profile that was original, indeed unique. At work underneath, constantly setting the direction for Tokyo's urban formation, was the historical and cultural context inherited from Edo as well as the sense of urban scale and space shared by its people.

CHAPTER FOUR

Modernism and Its Urban Forms

The Age of the City From the outset, Tokyo was blessed with favorable conditions for an urban environment and cityscape. The verdant high city boasted an undulating topography; the low city, reclaimed from a delta, was a water-borne metropolis with a circuit of canals. A city of innumerable hills and bridges without equal in the world: this was Tokyo. But when we look at Tokyo's modern history, we see that this rich historical and cultural legacy has eroded; the city has been destroyed in the name of functionality and economy. Tokyo has ceased to be a place where its citizens pursue life and livelihood. All too rapidly, the city's center has been hollowed out and given over to industry and business. In recent years a movement has emerged throughout the city aimed at returning development to its proper course and restoring appealing living spaces to the center. With an emphasis on urban and environmental design, efforts at self-fashioning are under way everywhere. These represent a turn away from the methods of the rapid-growth period, when large-scale development was heedlessly pursued and the local environment was ignored for the sake of function and efficiency. Instead, recent efforts have approached development from the standpoint of the people in order to create a city that is both livable and rich in individual appeal. Yet this way of thinking, which seems at long last to have taken root, is by no means a new achievement. Looking back over Japan's modern 171

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history, we find that urban thinking of this kind was already thriving by the 1920s and, indeed, yielded solid results then beyond what we see today. The passage from era to era, however, has been extraordinarily rapid. The earlier periods seem remote, and their renowned works of architecture are increasingly being lost to us along with the cityscapes they created. With the attention now being given to urban design, should we not bring to light its forebears — the urban thinking of the 1920s and the urban environment it produced? With this goal in mind, I would like to discuss the innovative approaches to citizen-oriented city development that emerged in Tokyo during these periods and to "read the Tokyo of modern times." The 1920s were a crucial period in the history of cities in Japan. During the Age of Civilization and Enlightenment in the nineteenth century, plans for urban reconstruction were drawn up and brought to fruition. These were "state designs"—that is, conceived by the authorities and carried out almost exclusively along major thoroughfares and at the center of the city. Although the common people turned their curious gaze toward the imported products of civilization and enlightenment, they kept the traditions of Edo alive and well in the low city, where they lived and operated their businesses. During the 1920s, by contrast, city planning stressed the enhancement of popular livelihoods, and modernization percolated down to places close to everyday life. Not only the general public but also professionals and administrators increasingly expressed their concern about the city and region. On the one hand, they preached the virtues of urban functionality and practicality; on the other, they evinced a desire to pursue beauty and comfort (perhaps indicating that a notion close to today's "amenities" had already emerged) along with a social livelihood. Recently, a lively movement to reevaluate the period has emerged in all fields, to the point that one now hears, "The present is no more than an imitation of the 1920s."1 This perception is by no means limited to the developed countries of the West; it also exists in Japan. As Unno Hiroshi has pointed out, it is possible to regard the 1920s as the period when contemporary urban life emerged in Japan.2 This life included not only fashion, cosmetics, automobiles, movies, posters, and mass media but also literature, art, and music—and beyond these, architecture and urban design as well. Even the plainest of shops that lined the city streets energetically imitated one another in incorporating such Western design features as arches and orders into their

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exteriors. They gave rise to a unique, attention-getting form of buildingfront expression termed "billboard architecture," which laid the foundation for later styles of shop architecture in Japan, In the field of city planning also, with the enactment of the city planning and urban district building materials laws of 1919, the legislative basis for subsequent urban construction was established. Nearly all of what may be considered the technical vocabulary of today's city planning appeared in this period, and the basic pattern of Tokyo's cityscape assumed the shape it has today. Many factors worked to bring about this age of the city. World War I had fostered industrialization accompanied by an influx of population to the cities, along with the formation of the working class and the masses in general. These changes provided the background for the rise of a new, democratic way of thinking. In addition, economic growth brought about a boom in consumption, giving popularity to the word culture: this bears an uncanny resemblance to the situation in cities today, where people seem bent on affixing the label of culture to absolutely everything in sight. These elements, I think, made for a truly new experience in Japanese society. At the same time, of course, we must not forget the existence of a countervailing element, the accumulation of city history and urban traditions since the Edo period, as though the city was living in the midst of an unbroken stream of time. The rapid advance of urbanization provoked all manner of urban pathologies: increased building density, the appearance of inferior housing areas, economic and housing distress among the city's people, and speculation that accompanied the jump in land prices. It may seem thus inappropriate to speak too highly of urban conditions at that time. Yet when we consider the high intellectual quality and passion of the experts and city administrators who were trying to overcome these problems and create a good urban environment for the people, and when we realize that these efforts created the urban facilities and spaces that form the basic framework of Tokyo today, we realize just how much we in the present have to learn.

Tokyo: A Water-Borne Metropolis Low-city Tokyo was a great water-borne metropolis formed by the Sumida River and numerous canals. The charm of its

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cityscape was depicted in ukiyo-e and color woodblock prints by Hiroshige and the Meiji-era artist Kobayashi Kiyochika, among many others. With the advent of the age of modernism, what changes did the urban spaces of Tokyo's waterside undergo? The 1920s was above all a period of transition for Tokyo's urban structure and its transportation system. The development of the railroads meant the reorientation of the city from water to land, while on the streets, rickshas were replaced by automobiles and buses. Such changes strongly influenced the redefinition of Tokyo's urban space. From the outset, all manner of functions associated with human activity were concentrated along the waterfront. Not only did warehouses and dock areas handle transport and economic activity, but secondary daimyo residences took advantage of the superb natural environment by locating there. The many teahouses and restaurants catering to the commoner trade created a space for pleasure that was jusdy famed for its natural beauty. With modern times, however, the sites of daimyo mansions became the homes not only of public buildings but also of factories and large-scale warehouses. The water grew increasingly polluted, and by the 1910s the area had lost its appeal as the city's playground. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which devastated the low city, wiped virtually all traces of Edo's charm from the area along the water. The importance of water to the city, however, was undiminished. Inexpensive, large-scale water transport was as brisk as ever. Although certain canals whose shallowness made them ill-suited to transport were filled in, the general trend was toward expansion and improvement; the Kandagawa River, in fact, soon boasted a newly constructed embankment. In addition, water-buses went into operation, enmeshing the low city in their network and becoming a vital form of public transportation. Thus, although the waterfront was deprived of the charm of Edo, water continued to exert considerable power over the urban environment. Looking at post-earthquake recovery efforts, we realize that the waterfront played an important role in many, varied ways. One notable feature is the frequency with which planners sought to superimpose a beautiful Western waterfront on that of Tokyo. The landscape architect Orishita Yoshinobu, for example, had observed London's and Paris's boulevard systems. He argued for the use of scenic waterside locales, and even before the 1923 earthquake, he proposed the creation of a huge boulevard beginning at Yotsuya Mitsuke and running all the way around the outer moat. He praised the beauty of the Rhone riverbank and the seashore at Naples, deploring the fact that along the Sumida

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River, the docks, factories, restaurants, and weekend homes of the wealthy discharged their waste water into the river and set out soiled objects to dry in plain view.3 What is important here is the difference in meaning that the word "water" held for informed people of this time and for those who lived earlier. Originally, Edo people felt that the water was a place of performance where one set out in a boat to experience the delights of ludic space. Or it was something that encompassed every aspect of human existence and thus bore intimate ties to cosmology. But in the 1920s, waterside space was reimported to Japan by way of Western cities and reevaluated. Apart from its role in the transport of goods, it was treated almost exclusively as an object to be looked at, as a central element in the formation of urban beauty. Thus, waterside spaces in post-earthquake Tokyo provided the most direct expression possible of modernism in urban place formation. Focusing on the changes in waterside space provides a singularly effective method for penetrating to the essence of urban modernization as it unfolded in Tokyo. First came the earthquake recovery projects of Hamacho and Sumida parks, both featuring modern promenades along the Sumida riverfront. They and Kinshi Park—the three major parks incorporated into the city's earthquake recovery plans—were meant to promote the health, sanitation, rest, and recreation that Tokyo residents required. They were also planned to aid in fire prevention and to serve as evacuation sites in case of emergency. In the case of Hamacho Park, the acquisition of rights to the land was comparatively easy because the land had had only three owners, beginning with the Hosokawa family. Important sections of the property, however, were occupied by the well-known pleasure quarter that had developed along the Hamacho waterfront, and their acquisition and transfer were complicated. In the end, because of a ruling by the Land Expropriation Review Board, this preserve of old Edo was removed; in its place a splendid park was constructed, which uses modern design to express the concept of water-friendliness. Sumida Park made its debut as a mile-long promenade along both sides of the river, with an innovative Western design that restored the lyrical Sumida riverscape (Fig. 67). In order to create just the right modern vista, the venerable Yaomatsu restaurant was torn down. After the Meiji period, this superbly laid-out park along the Sumida became a popular site for modern sports and boat-racing events. On the Mukojima side of the river, which was famous for the cherry

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67. Sumida Park in the late 1920s. trees lining its bank, the character of the setting as a scenic spot dating from the Edo period was respected; though nearly destroyed in the earthquake, the row of cherry trees was brought back to life along the modern promenade, while the Tokugawa mansion, with its tidal garden, and traditional religious spaces such as Ushijima and Mimeguri shrines and Chomeiji Temple were incorporated into the background. This design allowed for variety in the environment of what otherwise would have been just another monotonous modern park. Permission was even given for shops inside the park to sell long-beloved local treats—dessert dumplings called Kototoi dango and sweet rice-cakes wrapped in cherry leaves. When we peel away just one layer from the neat, clean, modern urban space of this grand waterside park, we discover the dense, crowded space formed by the urban underworld of the Tamanoi pleasure quarter: this is a fact to be kept in mind as we ponder the light and shadows of the city.4 Nevertheless, in the exterior spaces that are the face of the city, the avid pursuit of modern urban designs remade the Tokyo cityscape again and again. For example, old bridges that had been destroyed in the

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earthquake were replaced by modern ones. By this time, Japanese civil engineering was self-sufficient; even though it relied on Western precedents, it also produced many bridges noted for their superbly individual design. Of course, bridges had served since Edo times as key accents in the vistas of the low city, like the hills of the high city. Architects participating in the deliberations of post-earthquake commissions not only considered bridges' transport function and structure but also looked for designs with links to the environment of the region.5 Today, fifty years after their construction, these bridges continue to play an important role in shaping the cityscape of low-city Tokyo. A ride on one of today's popular sightseeing water-buses provides an opportunity to take in the beauty of the "Six Bridges of the Recovery": moving upstream from the lower reaches of the Sumida, we see in succession the bridges at Aioibashi, Eitaibashi, Kiyosubashi (Fig. 68), Kuramaebashi, Komagatabashi, and Kototoibashi. Or taking a smaller boat and turning onto the Kandagawa River, we encounter one slender suspension bridge after another; once we enter the Nihonbashi River, we find instead many bridges with heavy ferroconcrete arches. In contrast, few of the bridges in the Koto and Sumida districts have arches; the cantilever type predominates here. Great inventive effort has gone into these bridges, making them an indispensable element in the overall design of Tokyo's regional development.6 The masterpiece among these bridges must surely be Hijiribashi Bridge, a modern ferroconcrete structure known for its innovative design by the then up-and-coming architect Yamada Mamoru. As the bridge spans the lush glen at Ochanomizu in a single sweeping arch, the beauty of its design is truly moving (Fig. 69). The name Hijiribashi (Saints' Bridge), chosen in a public contest, derives from the fact that the bridge links two sacred sites — the shrine to Confucius at Yushima to the north, and the Orthodox St. Nikolai Cathedral to the south. The number of bridges remaining in Tokyo is astonishing. These bridges were originally designed to be seen by people riding in boats on the canals below, rather than by those crossing over them. Unfortunately, boat traffic on the canals has virtually ceased, and most of the remaining bridges are confined to gloomy spaces under the elevated highways (Fig. 70). As a result, the number of people who notice these marvelous designs has dwindled. Traditionally, bridges did more than connect two opposite riverbanks. They served as traffic nodes. As people gathered at their base, these areas inevitably busded with activity. During the Edo period, the

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68. Kiyosubashi Bridge.

69. Hijiribashi Bridge.

areas at the foot of major bridges such as Ryogokubashi and Sujikaebashi were kept open to guard against the spread of fire. Teahouses and show tents popped up nearby, and these areas came to serve as public plazas. Since ancient times in Japan, the riverbanks where outcasts and idlers concentrated formed one of the few unregulated places inside the city, providing the basis for open-air performances and the creation of public space.

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70. Shin-Tokiwabashi Bridge under elevated highway.

The meaning of such urban space cannot be expected to change overnight, and indeed, most of the plaza-like spaces that appeared in postearthquake Tokyo were located at the foot of the city's bridges. Transformed into regulated space, they may have lost the original plurality of meanings associated with the waterside, with its mixture of romantic nostalgia and raucous vulgarity. But these bridgeside spaces offered the perfect setting for an urban design that would produce new kinds of urban beauty. The notion of a plaza or square, following examples from Germany, was introduced to Japan during the 1910s and took root after the 1923 earthquake. But in the end, plazas of the Western type never did appear in Japan. Rather, such places were almost exclusively "traffic plazas," such as those at the foot of the city's great bridges. Among the most noticeable results of Tokyo's earthquake recovery program was the planting of trees within the city. Trees lining the streets made a full-scale appearance during this period. Not surprisingly, the major sites for tree planting were the bridgeside plazas scattered throughout the low city (Fig. 71). Such places served a practical function as loading and storage sites during bridge construction or during preparation for the replacement of a span. As they had during the Edo period, they also served as fire-

7i. Tree-planting network; late 1920s. The black dots are the sites of bridges. Teitofukkojigyo shi (Chronicle of projects undertaken in Tokyo's postearthquake recovery).

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breaks. At the same time, they were regarded as crucial spaces in shaping the urban environment and cityscape. Open places surrounded by trees, like the area around Eitaibashi Bridge, were pleasing to the eye and spirit. Yet it is not well known that these bridgeside plazas continue to exist today, though in somewhat renovated form. Walking between Yanagibashi and Manseibashi bridges, across the Kandagawa River, we note that the four corners of each bridge remain as open space. Many of these areas are used as playgrounds for children. We often find places planted with willow trees, perhaps a holdover from Edo. The bridge balustrades and plaza railings are uniform in design, even though the bridges and the plazas were administered by different departments. Transcending the rigid administrative framework, they provide a superb example of urban design. Because post-earthquake city planning lavished attention on bridges and bridgeside plazas, we can get a sense of the meaning that resonated in and around the city's waterside areas. This meaning transcended mere function and developed from Tokyo's links to its Edo past. Serving as a reference point in defining the city's new face, these areas made use of the marvelous sensitivity to water that is distinctive to us as Japanese. Evidence of this sensitivity can be found in old woodblock prints depicting the interior of the city, which almost uniformly incorporate the waterside in some form. The same holds for modern times. It was along the waterside that wonderful examples of early modern architecture first appeared. There can be no doubt that the water worked its power on the designers, stirring their creativity. As with women, the more these cityscapes became the object of a loving gaze, the more their beauty increased. By the same token, no sooner did citizens and architects turn their backs on them than the waterside cityscapes turned into eyesores. Of all the places in the city, Tokyo's waterside was the most frequently gazed upon. Whether from a boat or from a bridge, everyone had occasion to view the buildings along the water. The waterside — and the bases of bridges in particular—had the broadest open space of any location in the city, providing enough distance for buildings to be seen in their entirety. This kind of setting was more than enough to stir the ambitions of any architect. Let us become acquainted with a few of the splendid architectural products of this period and the public spaces that surrounded them. Many readers will recall the brick edifice with the attractive dome that

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72. The Daiei Building.

stood at the base of Nihonbashi (this building actually dates from a slighdy earlier period). The Daiei Building (formerly the Imperial Hemp Spinning Company, Fig. 72), designed by Tatsuno Kingo and erected in 1911, was closely associated with the waterside environment. Facing the bridge was a tower-like stairwell, which served as an exterior accent. From the windows at the top of the spiral staircase could be seen the imposing outline of Nihonbashi Bridge and, slighdy further down, the surface of the river (Fig. 73). Still further down, the dramatic spatial

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73. The stairwell in the Daiei Building.

display made an observer feel almost swallowed up by the water; one could practically hear Venetian boatmen singing by the window. The construction of a succession of buildings like these at the base of Nihonbashi Bridge quickly created a splendid waterside public space. First, in 1910, came Nihonbashi Bridge itself, a permanent stone span designed and planned by Tsumaki Yorinaka. With its flowing arches and wonderfully sculpted gas lanterns, its beauty cut a brilliant figure at the heart of Tokyo. As if in response, a series of famed buildings rose, each displaying its own formal beauty: the Murai Bank (later Tokai Bank, 1910), the Imperial Hemp Spinning Company (presently the Daiei Building, 1911), the Kokubu Company (1915), and the Nomura Building (1929). The height and volume of these bridgeside buildings was unlike anything seen in Japanese cities before. As stone and brick buildings brought an image of permanence to the open bridgeside areas, a substantial exterior space formed in Tokyo for the first time. The spaces at the foot of bridges, which until then had formed the most typical of Japanese locales, were transformed into modern, Western-style urban plazas. Further down the Nihonbashi River (a section that is now, unfortunately, underneath the elevated highway completed just before the

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74. The Mitsubishi Warehouse Building: the present-day approach by land.

Tokyo Olympics), at the base of Edobashi Bridge, stands the uniquely shaped building that houses the Mitsubishi warehouse (1930; Figs. 74 and 75). This site has been a hive of activity since the Edo period; in modern times an impressive public center took shape here. Occupying one corner of the site is the Nihonbashi Post Office, which stands at the very point where Japan's postal system began. Present-day Edobashi Bridge was moved about a hundred yards upstream from its original location when the avenue known as Showa Dori was laid out as part of the city's earthquake recovery program. Completed in 1927, its modern design is outstanding even among postearthquake bridges. Beginning with the warehouse and the post office, modern architecture appeared quickly along the side of the bridge and surrounded the open space. Tree planting in the area began in earnest along Showa Dori. The result was a public space rich in vegetation. The Mitsubishi warehouse that looms over the area has two faces. One looks out over the open space on the land side, creating a rounded corner; it has the diagonal entrance that was fashionable at the time. The other faces the water, taking advantage of a bend in the canal; it boasts a beautiful, curved exterior. The building gives the impression of a ship floating on water, and there is a mast-like tower on the roof. As befits such a warehouse, the first floor facing the water is arranged so

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75. The Mitsubishi Warehouse Building: the approach by water, with the Tokyo Securities Exchange in the foreground; late 1920s.

that boats can tie up directly to it, thus serving as a kind of canalside dock. By incorporating into the building itself a function of the Nihonbashi waterfront that had continued uninterrupted since the Edo period, the structure exhibits an arrangement typical of modern architecture in the 1920s.

This area has long been famous as the most beautiful site along the Nihonbashi River; here, after the Meiji period, the grand Venetian Gothic residence of Shibusawa Ei'ichi cast its magnificent form over the water. In settings like this, splendid buildings rose one after the other as if in competition; this multiplication created an even more wonderful urban vista. The Tokyo waterfront, especially the areas along the bridges, is a perfect example. Further down the Nihonbashi River, at the foot of the Yoroibashi Bridge, the Tokyo Securities Exchange—built by Yokokawa Tamisuke in 1927—towered over its surroundings. Regrettably, it was recently torn down to make way for new construction. But by combining the ground plans of the building and the bridge, we can appreciate the consummate skill with which the original design took advantage of its irregularly shaped angular lot at the base of the bridge. This edifice, with its classical form and full cylindrical section placed at the tip of the lot facing the base of the bridge, served as a symbolic landmark for the public

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space along the waterfront. The visual effect of the design was further enhanced because the road makes a dogleg just at the bridge. Viewed from passing boats, the building was an imposing sight indeed. The waterfront, bridge, and bridgeside plaza created an urban space with an appeal found only in modern Tokyo. We have seen, then, that a circuit of Tokyo's central canals by boat yields a variety of discoveries. The pleasure of looking at the city from unexpected perspectives is a truly keen one. And when we set out beneath the elevated highway in a small boat in search of the links between the long-hidden water and the land, we understand something of the fun of playing explorer. By eliminating from our field of vision both the overhead highway and the "razor" embankments that line the water on both sides, we can imagine for ourselves the original waterfront vista; when, here and there, we discover marvelous early modern buildings and bridgeside plazas, we begin to feel that Tokyo has not been entirely abandoned after all. Our inquiry into the urban forms created during the special surge of modernism in the 1920s leads to a discovery. Architects and builders, who had grown proficient in the Western architectural techniques they had copied and studied since the late nineteenth century, no longer limited their concerns to individual buildings, but instead extended their attention to the surrounding streets and urban space. A notion of urban design was beginning to take root. These urban forms also make clear the views of people engaged in contemporary architectural design concerning methodology. According to modernist architectural theory, the free lot of the suburb, unencumbered by surrounding conditions, constituted an ideal setting. Architects today, by contrast, focus on "contextualism," on designs that are suited to a given place in close interaction with its existing urban context. Many of the buildings erected during the 1920s seem to have anticipated this view in the skill with which their designs used their location and contributed to the creation of urban space. The Western-style buildings of Meiji tended to stand conspicuously alone, unrelated to the rows of traditional warehouse structures that surrounded them. But during the subsequent period, when entire districts were modernized to create an urban context, buildings were consciously designed to interact with elements of exterior space such as streets and plazas. As urban activity grew in intensity along with people's urban awareness, urban spaces began to appear everywhere as familiar faces of the city. Particularly in Tokyo's low city—the part of the city that had been

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oriented toward the water since Edo times — outstanding buildings continued to concentrate near bridges even after the 1930s, as if to capture the story of these spaces for themselves; the result, as we have seen, was the bridgeside plaza. In places like these, where canals followed the subtleties of the local topography and roads converged from every direction, any urban structure based on a regular grid pattern simply fell apart amid the proliferation of irregular lots. This kind of urban context was often turned to advantage, as a great many original and important buildings appeared along the waterfront. From this perspective the great architectural masterpiece of Tokyo has to be the urban space in and around Sukiyabashi Bridge (Figs. 76 and 77). During the decade or so following the earthquake, beautiful buildings representing the period's most innovative designs — from secessionist to something approaching international style—appeared along the canal. Facing the bridgeside plaza were the Asahi Shinbunsha and Nichigeki Theater buildings. Behind them stood the Hôgaku-za Theater, and across the bridge, adjoining a small park, was the Taimei Elementary School (still extant). Together they made a spendid urban space. Rather than assert a powerful individual monumentality, these architectural recipients of modernist baptism seem to have sought a collective effect in the context of the locale as a whole, to intensify the completion of the urban space as a plaza. The Hôgaku-za, which was the first to appear (1925), made its reputation as a first-run theater just as the film industry came into its prime. Located where the outer moat makes a gende curve, its rhythmical arrangement of pillars and arches was perfectly suited to the waterfront. Next came the Asahi Shinbunsha Building (1927). Like the Tokyo Securities Exchange described earlier, it took advantage of the inherent irregularity of the waterside lot to create a unique architectural form. It was even designed in imitation of a ocean liner on the water. The Taimei Elementary School appeared south of the bridge in 1929, displaying its elegant flowing lines to the plaza and waterfront. Because of an earthquake recovery policy of combining facilities vital to the residents of the city's center, this school was planned in conjunction with the adjoining Sukiyabashi Park; its design makes truly skillful use of the narrow triangular lot beside the bridge. Finally, the Nichigeki Theater (1933), located on the north side of the plaza, played an important role in the design of the bridgeside plaza. The façade of this horseshoe-shaped edifice was covered with pure white tiles, causing it to stand out as a brilliant, gleaming symbol of the entire Ginza. Thus, the urban space at Sukiyabashi was truly a product of "contex-

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76. Sukiyabashi Bridge and the Asahi Shinbunsha Building; late 1920s. Macbi: Meiji-Taisho-Showa (The city: Meiji-Taisho-Showa).

tualism" in the way it incorporated the water that was such a central part of life in the city. It read its setting well. After the war, for example, it was the scene of Kikuta Kazuo's popular radio drama Kimi no nawa (What's your name?), demonstrating that in yet another way Sukiyabashi was Tokyo for the people of the city. In explaining the central role of Sukiyabashi's bridgeside plaza, we must remember that the National Railway electric trains had begun to run through the district and a station had opened at Yuraku-cho. Sukiyabashi not only occupied the waterfront but also benefited from the convenience of modern transportation: more ideal conditions could hardly be imagined. With the metamorphosis of the canal into an elevated highway and shopping center, the water has long since disappeared from this modernist plaza. But Sukiyabashi remains one of the few public plazas in the city, and has by no means given up its role.

Street-Corner Plazas In the transition from the state designs of the Meiji period to the town-building, citizen-centered development of the 1910s

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77. Urban space in the vicinity of Sukiyabashi Bridge; late 1920s. Mcuhi: MeijiTaisho-Showa (The city: Meiji-Taisho-Showa).

and 1920s, open space — and especially the plaza — received attention as a symbol of the city. As we have noted, Western thinking about this kind of space was introduced during the 1910s, when the need of Japanese cities for space was being explored as well. The idea o f the plaza finally came to stay with the recovery projects that followed the earthquake of 1923. Yet in the end, symbolic public squares like the ones found in Western cities did not materialize in Japan. Instead, the spaces that appeared in Tokyo fell almost exclusively into the category o f "traffic plazas," including the plazas next to bridges. For Tokyo the 1910s and 1920s were very much periods of transition for its urban structure and transportation systems. The advent o f municipal streetcars, automobiles, public buses and then the railway brought about a shift from water to land that had a profound influence on the definition of urban space. N o t only along bridges but inland as well, new urban spaces that came to identify the city were created. These were "street-crossing plazas." We saw in the last chapter that, with the appearance of horsecars and trams during the Meiji period, Tokyo's intersections acquired importance as traffic nodes. Adorned with corner-cutting buildings topped by towers or domes, they began to serve as accents in the contemporary cityscape. To these were added images of public squares that were clearly

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Western, so that, even though no basic change was made in the gridpatterned streets that characterized Tokyo's urban structure, "pseudo plazas" were created, and a new atmosphere with them. The incorporation of Western design techniques into the Japanese urban context that had persisted since Edo gave birth to a plaza-like space that was totally unique to Japan. Like the bridgeside plazas, these spaces were not simply designed to handle the flow of traffic. They produced a distinct urban aesthetic as both the center of people's social life and the expression of a longing for Western public squares. These traffic nodes went beyond mere functional spaces to become places that residents saw as the face of their city. It was from this context that today's commonplace word "street corner" emerged. During this period, trams — and later automobiles — appeared on city streets. For safety reasons, it became imperative to cut a section from the "street corner" to ensure visibility at intersections. German records had already shown that this kind of alteration would create a plaza at the crossing. Although there had been local instances of corner cutting, the question of how much to cut was left almost entirely to the designer's intuition. But in March 1919, an experiment with a Metropolitan Police fire engine driven in the courtyard of the Army Staff College yielded quantitative values for corner cutting, which led to standard specifications. Lot adjustments after the 1923 earthquake led to the institution of systematic planning methods for streets and buildings. At intersections of newly widened streets, the four corners were cut, each according to plan, to create a plaza-like space of considerable size. These corner locations, which had superb views, became home for buildings of outstanding original design. Art deco and other modern styles of fashionable commercial architecture were the rage during this period. In addition, because tram stops were generally located at intersections in order to make transfers easier, they were always crowded with people. The late Edwin Reischauer, former U.S. ambassador to Japan, recalled on a television program that in prewar Tokyo "it was the intersections that showed the face of the city's many neighborhoods." Walking through areas of the low city that were spared destruction in the war, one comes upon coundess intersections that convey the modish street-corner atmosphere of those days. The Ningyo-cho crossing is a perfect example (Fig. 78). In a Tokyo without Western-style public squares, street corners of this kind served in their stead, becoming familiar and important to residents while imparting a special Japanese ambience to the city.

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78. The present-day Ningyó-chó crossing.

The technique of street-corner design was hardly limited to busding commercial districts lined with shops and offices. Evident in various locales throughout the city, it was particularly favored in the schools and parks that were constructed as part of the earthquake recovery program. In school architecture, it had already become a practice with the old system of higher schools to place the main entrance at the corner of the lot and design the building symmetrically along a diagonal line running through the lot. A similar configuration can be seen in the elementary schools designed by the Tokyo Department of Building and Repairs after the earthquake. The Jüshi Elementary School (ca. 1925), which still stands at the heart of the low city, provides a splendid example (Fig. 79). Located on the former site of the prison in Kodenma-chó, the school and a small nearby park were rebuilt according to an innovative design after the earthquake. Going beyond plans for an individual school, the design aimed at establishing positive links between the school lot and the streets and urban space beyond it. We can discern here a notion of what is now called urban design. At that time, to create an environment favorable to health and sanitation, planners usually placed elementary school buildings at the north side of a lot and laid out a large schoolyard to the south. Here, however, the principal considerations were the low-city location and the need to create an identifiable "face" for the district.

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79. Jushi Elementary School today.

Breaking with the standard formula, the design moved the school building to the southern section of the lot, closer to the busding nearby streets. At the southeast corner, which was crucial for linking the school with its surroundings, the designers placed a beautifully curved outer wall, crowned by the imposing main entrance to the school. This, in conjunction with the medium-sized street-corner plaza extending in front of the entrance, created an area that was stylish in form. We enter along a diagonal approach from the corner to find a compact inner yard surrounded by the U-shaped school building, a configuration typical of downtown elementary schools. Such diagonally oriented street-corner designs were indeed anomalies in Japanese urban space, with its lattice-like street patterns and the pillar-and-beam axial structure of its distinctive wooden buildings. Precisely for this reason, Japanese began to consider the new elements of radial and diagonal lines, which had been thoroughly conventional parts of European urban form since the baroque period, as essential for the creation of urban beauty. It seemed as though the genealogy of urban planning—beginning with the sixteenth-century Piazza del Popolo in Rome, followed by the garden paths of Versailles (1665), and then by plans for London (1667), Karlsruhe (1712), Berlin (1738), Washington (1791), and Haussmann's Paris (1867) —was already known in Japan.

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In fact, the replanning of Tokyo's streets, which is said to have been modeled on Haussmann's plans for Paris, consisted basically of removing the defensive functions of the former castle-town and widening and improving the existing city streets. In short, it brought Tokyo into line with the new age. Ende and Bockmann's plans for Tokyo's government center, which involved baroque-style urban renovation on a grand scale, were ultimately left unrealized. Even the major post-earthquake land adjustments did not entail compulsory Western-style, urban renovation, which would have imposed a radial and diagonal street pattern on Tokyo. Rather, the Western techniques for urban design that Japanese architects and city planners had studied, which made use of diagonal and radial lines, were applied chiefly in condensed form at street corners. There, they gave rise to a special, Japanese urban design. At the same time, models based on diagonal lines were favored— although on a limited scale — in park design, where they could be used freely, independent of the surrounding urban structure. Among the small parks dating from this period are some where more than half the lot is occupied by a "free plaza." These display a clear axial line, and a symmetrical and geometrical design that is modernism personified (Fig. 80). Where the lot is narrow, the axis is laid out diagonally, resulting in a daringly engaging effect that is absent from traditional Japanese methods of design. And regardless of scale, many park entrances are located at the corner of the lot, so that one enters from the street corner. Furthermore, by the mid-1920s a number of rooming houses built near modern university campuses, as well as a number of apartment houses, were beginning to emphasize corner entry. These also helped to produce a special street-corner vista. The Nihon-kan, a two-story woodand-mortar rooming house near Waseda University, is a fine example. It contains an inner courtyard and makes conscious use of what was then the height of modern technique, a corner-lot figuration (Fig. 81). Within the Dojunkai apartment complex, built after the earthquake to provide public housing to city residents, is another example—the Kiyosuna Dori apartments. Here we find that the tower-like section that houses the main entrance has been placed at the corner nearest the intersection. The awareness of the street corner in this configuration is obvious. We begin to notice that diagonally oriented forms were being handled as symbols of modernism. During this period, a deeper understanding of Western architecture and techniques of urban design raised

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80. Tokiwa Park: ground plan. Koen armai (Park guide).

the standards of Japanese urban construction so that spaces symbolic of the city—and within the Japanese urban context — could finally be built. Street-corner designs of this kind became a common architectural technique in the post-earthquake recovery period, producing plaza-like spaces throughout the city and giving it new vitality. The urban structures that appeared during these years produced the prototypes for the

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81. Nihon-kan, floor plan (by Shigemura Tsutomu). city of Tokyo as we know it today. Think, for example, of the familiar plaza-like areas in front of the San'ai and the Sony buildings in the Ginza, and the role they play as places of rendezvous. With the recent rise in concern about urban space and city neighborhoods, we find that symbolic structures using street corners to effect have once again begun to appear in considerable numbers.

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The Appearance of Station Plazas As Tokyo made the transition during the late 1920s to a city on land, city replanning after the earthquake resulted in widened and more numerous routes of transportation. Traffic plazas appeared at the intersection of certain major routes. Each was given a name selected from a list of suggestions made by the public: Ueno Plaza, Komagata Plaza (at the western edge of Komagata Bridge), Izumi Plaza (at the southern edge of Izumibashi Bridge), Yanagi Plaza (at the southern edge of Asakusabashi Bridge), Tatsumi Plaza (near Kurokamebashi Bridge), Marunouchi Plaza; also Mansei-no-tsuji (near Manseibashi Bridge), Edo-tsuji (near Chiyodabashi Bridge), Maki-no-tsuji, Kabukino-tsuji (near Miharabashi Bridge), among others. The planners of each plaza and crossing not only considered the need to handle an increased volume of street traffic but also addressed aesthetic concerns. They planted trees in safety zones and, in some locations, erected stylish pergolas as rest areas. Stops were built for the tram lines that converged in these plazas from all directions. People appeared in crowds, but the areas were, after all, laid out to accommodate the demands of traffic. They tended to be so vast that residents seem to have found it difficult to develop feelings of familiarity for them as they did for street-corner plazas. Most of these plazas and crossings, symbols of overland traffic in the new era, were in fact constructed near the edge of the city's bridges. When, for example, new roads were built parallel to the venerable Kandagawa River, urban spaces such as Izumi Plaza, Yanagi Plaza, and Mansei-no-tsuji appeared immediately inland of the old bridgeside plazas. Spaces like these are products of the period when Tokyo was changing its orientation from water to land. Among these spaces, two station plazas—Ueno Plaza and Marunouchi Plaza (in front of Tokyo station) — symbolize the conversion of Tokyo's preferred means of transport from water (boats) to land (trains). But in spite of the advent of the railroad, Tokyo's urban structure did not make the shift suddenly. Virtually all of the city's major rail stations were located along canal or river embankments and thus had ties to water. Freight depots in particular required close links to river transport, and we find that the most important of them —Akihabara, Iidamachi, Shiodome, Ryogoku, and Kinshicho — were built at long-established waterfronts.7

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82. Ueno Plaza: a conceptual drawing.

Tokyo's first genuine station plaza was created along the Kandagawa riverfront, which had been important since the Edo period. This plaza, in front of Manseibashi station (1911) at Yatsu Koji, was a node of overland and water traffic. Linked to the structure of the city on water, it was more than a mere focal point for traffic: with its bronze statue in honor of Commander Hirose Takeo, a hero of the Russo-Japanese War, standing right in the middle, the plaza also gained popularity as a new Tokyo landmark. During Tokyo's reorientation toward the land, the splendid new Ueno Station Plaza left a particularly strong impression. The station building, designed by the Engineering Bureau of the Railroad Ministry and completed in December 1931, was held to be the foremost example of modern architecture in all of East Asia (Fig. 82). Careful attention was given in its planning to the flow of pedestrians and vehicles through the plaza, where streetcars, subways, and automobiles created a huge volume of traffic. A two-level system was instituted to separate the cars approaching the station. This functional response was heightened into a design with a new urban beauty. One senses here a kind of elevated intelligence that is wholly absent from the design of postwar Japanese station plazas.

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As Tokyo developed into a land-oriented city, it moved increasingly toward the western suburbs. This process created rail terminals at the juncture of private lines in, for example, Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Ikebukuro. With the emergence of station plazas in these areas about 1935, the formation of modern Tokyo entered yet another new stage.

"Vest-Pocket" Parks as Social Centers In the 1920s parks acquired at least as much importance as plazas. Particularly noteworthy are the small "vest-pocket" parks created at fifty-two locations throughout the city as part of the earthquake recovery program. They show clearly the administrative measures taken to bring the earthquake-devastated low city back to life. The most distinctive feature of these parks was their location next to elementary schools; in fact, two were designed as single units with the schools. They effectively secured integrated open space in heavily builtup areas of the city and provided emergency evacuation centers. In addition, the elementary schools, whose yard space was limited, were able to use the parks as extensions of their playgrounds. On weekdays especially, they were used as facilities for children's sports. And on holidays, weekday mornings, and nights, they could be used by residents for recreation or strolling. With today's advanced urbanization, the combination of local public facilities is becoming a matter of substantial administrative concern. All the more astonishing, then, is the farsightedness of this period, more than half a century ago, not only in tackling the problem so energetically but in achieving such impressive results. These parks differed most from those of today—especially from children's parks — in having been designed chiefly as plazas. Parks they may have been, but their character was similar to that of Western urban plazas. Thirty to forty percent of the space was given over to wooden areas and flower gardens, ten percent served as children's play areas, and the rest (the largest part) was set aside as a public plaza. Called the "free plaza," this was a multipurpose urban space. It was planned not just for the daily use of the residents but also for assemblies, lectures, concerts, and other public meetings. The idea for small parks of this kind was introduced from the United States where, the city planner Ishihara Kenji said, local public squares were "aggregations of buildings and land equipped with facilities for

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education, recreation, and social intercourse." Reflecting the idealistic atmosphere of urban thought in the period of Taisho democracy, he added that American schools and social centers were actively used in the development of citizens' political conscience and urban spirit.8 The practice of coupling elementary schools with small parks followed the example of Chicago. In 1917 the Parks Commission of West Chicago received a proposal to expand a park that had grown uncomfortably cramped. Because the elementary school just opposite the park was facing the same problem, it was suggested that the two join forces and create a single integrated unit. And this was what came about. In the United States schools had previously been administered by one city department and parks by another, but with this precedent, the combined model soon spread. The Chicago model was, I believe, introduced to Japan before the 1923 earthquake by the landscape architect Orishita Yoshinobu, and plans were afoot even then to create such small parks in Tokyo.9 Then came the earthquake. In the recovery plans, the construction of fifty-two small parks was given highest priority, a goal that was achieved by 1930. Calls for such "vest-pocket" parks inevitably accompanied the advance of urbanization. As city population concentrated, families found it impossible to maintain individual household yards, and because of auto and bicycle traffic, children were no longer able to play safely in the streets. Thus, the parks became indispensable as a common yard for local residents. The emergence of these parks was tied to changes in the urban structure inherited from Edo. Traditionally, the low city was threaded with alleyways that served as convenient playgrounds for children as well as venues for the observance of proper neighborhood relations. But postearthquake city improvements eliminated such places in the name of disaster prevention. When residents resisted the new plans, the government was hard put to persuade local communities to accept them. Posters in great numbers proclaimed that traditional block divisions were premodern, unsanitary, and dangerous—in short, thoroughly unsuited to contemporary city life. Thus, in exchange for the low city's alleys and byways —its traditional collective space —local parks created by the techniques of modern design appeared. Modernist city planning consisted of a fundamental rejection of the past. Photographs taken during this period are fascinating for the jumbled contrast they reveal between the almost self-consciously innovative park design on the one hand, and the old-style clothing of the children

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85. A "vest-pocket" park; ca. 192$. Teito jukko shi (A history of Tokyo's postearthquake recovery).

playing in them on the other (Fig. 83). The residents' ability to use these urban spaces in their own way is testimony to the continuing salience of their sense of "living in the city," as well as of their customary social relations. We see the active incorporation of new Western notions and a further heightening among the city's people of a concern for, and an eagerness to maintain, their social life. This fortunate encounter of old and new elements, which was unique to the 1920s, made possible the creation of a common urban space unparalleled in the history of modern Japan (Fig. 84). These small parks were not necessarily used as their designers intended. There were cases, for example, of local people using the public toilet facilities (which were outstandingly clean and pleasant for their time) every morning to wash their faces and answer the call of nature. In the wake of the depression of 1930, there were reports of vagrants and unemployed people congregating there. Park administrators of a progressive turn of mind, we are told, took this as proof that the parks had become local public plazas. If anything, they welcomed such developments. Let us look at some of the innovative design techniques used in these

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84. A "vest-pocket" park today: Jushi Park.

small parks. Fortunately, the details of their original form are available to us through the Koen annai (Park guide), published at the time by the City of Tokyo (Fig. 85). The framing principle, voiced throughout, was that planners should neither adhere to traditional forms of landscaping nor simply imitate those of foreign countries. Although there were general rules concerning the component elements and the proportion of the whole area they should occupy, there was no intent to impose a standard design on urban facilities or otherwise inhibit the designer's conceptual freedom. Rather, each small park flowed easily from an original design that recognized the particularities of its location. Conditions such as the shape of the lot, the configuration of roads, and (in the case of the high city) the character of the topography all figured into the designs, which were elaborated with genuine skill. This flexibility of design attitude somehow suggests the approach of traditional Japanese landscaping. Most striking in these parks was the free plaza. Symmetrically designed along a clear axis, it displayed a typically modern geometrical form. In the case of a narrow lot, moreover, this axis was often laid out diagonally, resulting in a engaging form absent from traditional Japanese techniques of design. At the center along the front side, set upon a platform, an elegant pavilion complete with a wisteria trellis was always to be found. It formed the heart of the park scene and was ar-

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ranged so that it could easily be converted to a stage for public meetings or performances. One corner of the park was devoted to a children's playground, the prototype for the varied play facilities and children's parks that we see today. Especially splendid was the slide, designed in symmetry with a sandbox. Unlike the parks of today, however, the children's area with its arrangement of play equipment clearly played a subordinate role to the park as a whole, a relaxed space surrounded by trees. The space remaining on the fringes provided a pleasant green belt planted with trees and occasional benches and threaded by walking paths. In a Tokyo increasingly covered by concrete, this sort of protected vegetation has become all the more important. Walking through the low city, one feels that almost all the greenery is concentrated in these small post-earthquake parks. Not that small parks of this kind are limited to the low city; they are widely found throughout the historic high city as well. Motomachi Park, located in Bunkyo Ward along the outer moat, deserves special notice (Fig. 86). Laid out on three levels along the slope of a green hill, its daring use of staircases creates an unusual atmosphere. It is an engaging spot: although baroque in some ways, it also displays a sense of scale that is distinctively Japanese in its feel for proper form and modesty in allocating space. First, there is a wonderful use of gates, stairs, and niches to the front to produce a sense of space along the approach. Climbing the stairs to the top, we find a children's playground to the right and a small free plaza to the left. From the latter, a flowing molded stairway reminiscent of Gaudi's Parque Giiell in Barcelona leads to the

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86. Motomachi Park: ground plan. Koen annai (Park guide). wide open free plaza at the center. On the western edge, to the left, near the middle of the front, stands a stage with a pavilion, graced, following the formula, by a wisteria trellis. Bordering the free plaza on the east, at a slighdy lower level, is another children's playground. With the school adjacent to the park on the north side and the free plaza placed to the south, the park displays the ideal configuration. Motomachi Park, this splendid realization of a total plan, has retained almost intact its original layout. It is a precious work that conveys to us in the present the modernist atmosphere of the period of its creation. The appearance of a large number of these marvelously designed little parks in such a short time is due to the efforts of Inoshita Kiyoshi, chief of Tokyo's Parks Department. Graduating in 1905 from the Tokyo Higher Agricultural School, Inoshita immediately found a job with the city. From his position within the administration, he cultivated a group of young landscape planners and threw himself into the great task of

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park construction.10 As this example indicates, the creation of an urban environment requires the presence of talented planners and designers within administrative bodies. But the creation of these little parks did not stop with their construction as wonderful objects. When they were built, a core group of operators and users formed, suggesting an attitude different from that of today, where the facilities tend to be ends in themselves. From the early 1910s, people seeking to address urban social problems from an enlightened perspective had begun to direct children's play. After the earthquake Sueda Masu, recently returned from studies in the United States, led the Parks Department and a group of private volunteers in a program of child guidance. Local residents formed organizations called "Friends of the Park" with the aim of patrolling, inspecting, directing, and managing the fifty-two little parks. Children's associations were also formed at many of them. In this way, parks came to function as centers of local activity. During the war, this same effort at child guidance became one element in the construction of the National Mobilization system.11 The elementary schools that were combined with these parks were the work of the city's Department of Building and Repairs. Their ferroconcrete buildings displayed many excellent designs. With their links to an adjacent park and their integration into the surrounding urban environment, many of these schools are masterpieces of urban design. We can discern here the legacy of technicians who transcended the hierarchical administrative framework and used cooperation among departments to create designs that would enhance their city's environment. The pièce de resistance of these designs is the one for the high city's Shinka Park, built in conjunction with Yushima Elementary School (ca. 192s; extant) (Fig. 87). In photographs of the school, we are captivated, first, by the flowing, elegant design of the three-story ferroconcrete school building and auditorium, and their placement on the irregularly shaped lot. Cornices on top of the flat roof tighten the whole structure, while the order running through the three levels gives a rhythm to the outer walls. Arches built into the uppermost floor create an air of elegance. To enter the classrooms on the arched third floor is to come upon a world of fairy tales and children's dreams. The long eastern wing of the building extends into the park, describing a simple, beautiful curve at its southern tip. And then, wonderfully, lying along the same line at the southeast corner of the park, is a fountain, masterfully designed into the sharply angled edge of the lot; the entrances to the park lie on either side. This design evokes the baroque urban forms of Rome. It was

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87. Yushima Elementary School: planner's rendering. Kden annai (Park guide).

splendidly realized, with streets, park, and school forming a single entity. Sadly, a cafeteria now juts casually out of the main building, and the entrance from the street has been closed off The fountain, too, has been torn down; only one section remains standing. The fact that such innovative urban forms existed at all, it would seem, is already being forgotten among our school administrators. The standardization of school buildings proceeded apace after the war, so that now nothing but uniform dreariness is seen anywhere. But in post-earthquake Tokyo, fine elementary schools were built, and in large numbers, that combined with little parks in a superb environmental design. Functionally and spiritually, they acted as genuine community centers, helping to restore life to city streets in the earthquake-damaged capital. Today, almost every one of these little parks has taken on the appearance of a children's playground. The "free plazas" that were laid out to accommodate children's sporting events as well as public gatherings have been taken over by play equipment, the original design intent having been entirely forgotten. This transformation is doubtless the result of an increasing need for children's parks amid ongoing urbanization, and of a pernicious "facilities-are-everything" attitude that can only be satisfied with more and more play equipment. But it is no accident that the use of the parks by everyday citizens during the mornings and eve-

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nings and on holidays has dropped precipitously. For city residents, the soothing comfort of an evening stroll after dinner or a chat outside among friends has been completely lost. The many small "earthquake recovery" parks have much to teach us, not only about the forms of modern design but also about the good life that should be available to Tokyo's people.

Urban-Style Apartment Houses Unlike Western cities, Japan has no custom of living in downtown apartments facing a street or public square. In Paris or Rome, even where the first floor is occupied by a shop or an office, the upper floors are used as apartments for city residents; this arrangement is what gives the city its lively feel. In this way, the style of urban life that developed since the middle ages continues even today, enabling the residents of Western cities to enjoy an urban culture. In Tokyo, by contrast, the population made an exodus to the suburbs as the city grew, while the city center was hollowed out ever more rapidly. In addition to traditional single-family houses with gardens, group housing in apartments has become widespread. But in postwar Japan, "apartment house" has come to denote the massive apartment blocks known as danchi that are seen in the suburbs. These structures incorporate green space and enjoy a good natural setting, but they are also selfsufficient in ways that are distincdy nonurban in character. Modern Tokyo seems to have lost completely its sense of city life. Here again, we need to recall the Tokyo of the 1920s. The idea of the garden city was introduced from England around this time, and attention began to turn to the suburbs and their lush natural environment. In looking back over urban history, it is easy to become absorbed in the "garden cities," "culture villages," and "educational cities" of the day. But we must not forget that this was essentially the "age of the city." Existing city districts with their own histories also felt the impact of European and American ideas. The construction of modern-style apartment houses proceeded apace, inaugurating a new urban residential form. The designs of these buildings astonish us with their confident display of a sense of the city. Integrated into the existing context of districts and immediate neighborhoods, their modern design gave rise to the vista of a new age, and many of the buildings played a role in the rebirth

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of the city. But then these older urban residential forms were rejected and consigned to oblivion. Many of the condominiums built in recent years have disregarded their surrounding environment and have in fact destroyed the neighborhoods in which they were built. The group housing of today does not even approach the level of environmental design found in apartment houses built in the 1920s. As city growth slows, a call is again heard in Tokyo for the return of people to the center of the city. As in the West, an "inner-city policy" has been proclaimed in the hope of making the downtown environment attractive to residents once again. The construction of condominiums on former factory sites along the low-city waterfront is proceeding briskly. Urban development in Tokyo seems to have entered a new stage. In the revival of present-day Tokyo, a major theme is, unmistakably, the attraction of residents back to the city center. I wish, in this connection, to look at the apartment house culture that rose and developed during the "age of the city" of the 1920s. Precedents for these urban-style apartment houses, taken from the West, were introduced during the 1910s. In an essay written in 1918, the architect Ono Takeo described such houses in the United States. Built facing the streets at the center of the city, these were the sort of apartments, Ono argued, that had to be constructed as Tokyo modernized.12 Similarly, the contemporary architect Sano Toshikata argued that it was more convenient for urban citizens to live cooperatively, close to an "area that is thriving." Apartment house architecture, he pointed out, was the logical way to achieve this kind of life. 13 The most important role in the spread of apartment houses was played by an association known as the Dojunkai, which was founded after the earthquake to provide public housing to city residents. Although the organization also built single-family homes in suburban areas, its apartment houses merit special attention. A mention of the Dojunkai apartments brings to mind not only innovation in planning and design, maintenance and management, but also a cultivated sense of community and a lived-in feeling because of enlargements and renovations—in short, a mature environment. These features provide today's planners with a variety of objects for their attention. 14 Here, I would like to consider these buildings for the style of urban residence they define. Although deteriorating somewhat, virtually all the Dojunkai apartments continue to function well even today, blending into their area to form a wonderful living environment. The differences in planning and configuration between the Dojunkai apartments of the low city and

88. Sumitoshi Apartments.

89. Sumitoshi Apartments: spiral staircase.

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90. Sumitoshi Apartments: courtyard. those of the high city are to be expected, inasmuch as their construction was rooted in the existing character of each area. I will focus particularly on the Dojunkai apartments in the low city. Their most distinctive feature, in contrast to the self-sufficient character of postwar apartment complexes, is that they were planned with consideration to the links between themselves, the neighborhood, and the district. For an example, let us visit the Sumitoshi Apartments in Koto Ward (Figs. 88-90). The exterior, facing the street, is the very embodiment of low-city liveliness. The first floor is occupied by shops, the upper floor

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by apartments. The renovations and expansions of half a century have thoroughly assimilated the complex to the city streets. Pass through one of the several tunnel-like entrances to the interior, however, and the atmosphere changes completely. We find ourselves in a spacious courtyard space rare in a Japanese city, recalling the Place des Vosges, built in Paris in the seventeenth century. At the center, marked off by a simple trellis and shrubbery and surrounded by trees, is a pleasant park. Young mothers and children gather in the children's park, while senior citizens play an enthusiastic game of gate-ball (a Japanese version of croquet). Miniskirted young women sit on benches in the shade. The courtyard has been put to use in truly elegant fashion as a shared community space and has come to reflect the life-styles of the different eras since its construction. At one time before the war, a tatami factory operated in the courtyard, and many of the artisans employed there lived in the apartments nearby. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, when ties among the residents were stronger than they are now, athletic meets and Bon Festival dancing drew energetic participation, and residents congregated around an outdoor television installed at one corner of the courtyard. This particular apartment house was built in Sarueura-cho, an area known as the worst residential environment in the city of Tokyo, which became part of a delinquent housing improvement project following the earthquake. As might be expected, it was designed simply and built on a low budget. Whereas the usual Dojunkai apartments, and the postwar apartment blocks that replaced them, have individual apartments to the left and right of each stairwell, here the number of stairwells is reduced. Individual apartments are approached through an open corridor that runs around the courtyard. The arrangement gives an unusual earthy and bustling feel to the courtyard, such as one might find in the towns around Naples or in South America. The spectacle of each family hanging its laundry and bedding out to dry over the courtyard is a fine one indeed. And despite its economical construction, there is something astonishing about the form of the spiral staircase located at one corner of the building. In stark contrast to the standardization of residences and the mechanical way of cramming rooms into buildings that mark the conceptual poverty of postwar architecture, we can appreciate here, especially in the energy that has been invested in the design of common space, the desire of the planners to create a living space of high quality. They also actively introduced modern conveniences. Flush toilets and city gas were installed early on. So were trash chutes, linked to floors

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above and below at regular intervals, which provided a rhythmic vertical design accent to the inner court. The clothes-drying area on the roof remains in active use. The Kiyosago Don Apartments, built at an intersection in Koto Ward, are also a masterpiece of urban design. Here the apartment building itself, which faces the street, was regarded as an important design element in the formation of the urban space; its imposing tower-shaped entrance at the corner of the block creates a symbolic configuration. On the interior of the lot, meanwhile, the building is laid out symmetrically in a flat pattern along a diagonal axis. Behind it is a courtyard, impressively designed from the first as a small park. Many of the Dojunkai apartments carried out planning that was eminendy suited to urban group housing; it ensured a good living environment oriented toward the neighborhood while allowing ample space for an inner courtyard. Whereas the low city hitherto had been a world of threading alleyways and lines of wooden tenements, these apartment blocks with their central courtyards helped to bring modernity to the atmosphere of the low city. As we saw earlier in connection with vestpocket parks, these common spaces could be used effectively and their open-air activities could continue because the low city's traditional sense of urban habitation remained relevant. The plural character of common space found in the low city's alleys and streets was passed on, though in changed form, to their modern successors. The Dojunkai apartments, with their basis in a Western model, did produce a revolutionary living space. And yet they were not simply imitating something foreign. Admittedly, unfamiliarity with ferroconcrete buildings led to a certain immaturity in the structural planning of the pillars and beams, and to discordance in the exterior design. Nevertheless, they display throughout—perhaps unconsciously—a subde Japanese sensitivity in the handling of exterior space and the layout of common areas. In addition, their large complexes arranged around a central court and divided into smaller, conveniently numbered dwelling units suggest a consideration for patterns of social relations that was typical of the low city. The apparent innovation of setting the building around a central court was probably modeled on European rather than American group housing. But a form of this kind could be introduced and accepted without much resistance because, by the 1910s, the use of a central courtyard had already become an architectural convention in the construction of inns and roominghouses throughout the university districts of Hongo and Waseda. Most of the Dojunkai apartments withstood wartime damage and remain in fine shape today. Their residents

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take pride in these modern apartment houses, truly one of the ornaments of Tokyo's modern history. When visiting the low city's Dojunkai apartments, our interest is attracted most of all by the way the building interiors and central courts have been incorporated into the residents' daily lives, and how well they have weathered over time. Indeed, they probably exceeded their planners' expectations in this respect. The profusion of bonsai and potted plants, whether in the first-floor tenants' garden or on the roof, suggests a private botanical garden. Although it would be difficult to restore the buildings to their original form, it is fascinating to see the various ways they have been enlarged and renovated. In many cases, residents representing each floor have discussed, agreed on, and joindy enlarged a building or refurbished the interior space. Even though they are made of concrete, these buildings seem to be alive and integral to their residents' daily lives. In recent years, in areas close to the Dojunkai apartments, high-rise condominiums have begun to appear on the sites of former factories. Many are built according to standardized plans and have virtually no relation to the surrounding neighborhood or the environment. Some of them seem to be merely giant containers into which people are packed against their will. The example of the Dojunkai apartments allows us to return to the beginning in our thinking about group housing. But post-earthquake Tokyo contained a variety of excellent apartment buildings besides those of the Dojunkai. Especially worthy of note is the Kudanshita Building (formerly the Imagawakoji Common Building). It was erected with the assistance of the Architecture Recovery Promotion Company (Fukko Kenchiku Josei Kabushiki Kaisha) in 1927 as a kind of redevelopment project in an area originally lined with merchant houses. A three-story ferroconcrete structure extending lengthwise along the street, it was parceled out in vertical sections. The allotments for the individual residence units varied, because they were in proportion to the original lot frontage owned by each titleholder. The front of the first floor was occupied by shops, whose owners lived either on the first floor in back or on the second floor. The two floors were joined by a traditional staircase. Thus, they were similar in construction to an oldfashioned merchant house. The third floor, however, was divided up into one-room apartments that were rented out to single individuals. The third floor was reached from the street by a common stairwell, with the approach to each individual unit by a side corridor located to the rear of the third floor. In this way, urban-style commercial architecture with rental apart-

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ments on the top floor made its appearance in Japan. Studio apartments of this kind spread widely throughout the center of the city during this period, testifying to the presence of a new type of urban dweller, who rented an apartment and either worked or studied elsewhere. At this time, a great many privately built apartment houses also appeared. Among them, the Asakawa Building, erected in 1932 close by Edobashi Bridge, was particularly fascinating in its configuration: it had a public bathhouse on the first floor, a barbershop and coffee house in the basement, and studio apartments on its upper floors. This apartment house could be described as thoroughly typical of the low city, where a bathhouse, barbershop, and teahouse were indispensable elements in every district. Here, instead of living in the familiar single-room tenements that lined the alleyways horizontally, people took up residence in vertically layered one-room apartments. Many privately built apartment houses have managed to preserve a traditional feeling while energetically incorporating new forms. The Spanish Village of Iikura Katamachi in Azabu (discussed in Chapter 1) is a classic example of this kind of building. These apartment houses reflected the experience of living in the age of the city. They overflowed with a chic peculiar to city dwellers in the age of modernism, who found enjoyment in the urban culture that was beginning its own brilliant development in these years. Although suburban expansion was also beginning to claim attention, interest in the city remained extraordinarily high. If these kinds of apartment houses had become common and their construction had continued, the structure of residential life in Tokyo would doubdess have been quite different. Perhaps it would have developed the atmosphere of a city like Paris. At the least, we would have been spared our present worries about the hollowing out of the city's center. But from about 1934, this sort of urban-style apartment house vanished almost completely. A look at the winners of the "Family-Style Apartment House Design Competition," held in 1940, shows what emerged instead: all the selections resemble the massive apartment blocks of later years. They serve as a vivid reminder that the surge of interest in the city during the 1920s, as well as the actual urban forms encouraged by the liberalism of the time, died out suddenly as the pounding footsteps of militarism drew inexorably closer. Under the wartime system, with urban areas the target of aerial attack, people's concerns understandably turned away from the city and toward the countryside and villages.

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After the war, as the cities expanded during the period of rapid economic growth, residents again made an exodus to the suburbs, pushing their boundaries farther and farther back. Everywhere, cities exhibited a phenomenon of centrifugal collapse, and Tokyo's vital urban culture, accumulated at its center over generations, was swiftly lost.

Conclusion: Toward a New Age of the City City-craft advanced in a number of fields in Tokyo during the 1920s. This was an age when citizens, administrators, and experts all held great dreams about the city and its architecture. Walking the city today we frequently come across elegant expanses that convey the period's design ideas. Despite this recent brilliant experience, have we not lost our capacity to enjoy city life, as well as our sense of how to create an abundant social environment? A void has persisted ever since the war. The desire to create urban forms has been cut short, and the Tokyo cityscape has been reduced to one of dreary, decontextualized uniformity. At last, however, history has come full circle. In recent years citizens' demands for a full urban life and beauty in the cityscape have grown stronger. They have fostered a movement that takes greater cognizance of the urban and regional context and designs buildings fully suited to their location. If we are truly to rehabilitate the city, it is necessary— right now, while it is still readily accessible—to pay attention to the urban thinking of the 1920s and to learn as much as we can from this precious historical experience. And yet, even as we rightly praise the urban forms of modernism, we must consider something else from the standpoint of today: the modernist approach to city-craft was born amid the lofty idealism of the 1920s, which, in its pursuit of social progress and development, was the high point of the modernization process. Its adoption of a new, Western sense of values and planning techniques as models may have been somewhat hasty. To be sure, the small parks and Dojunkai apartments discussed earlier were more than mere imitations of foreign models and in fact displayed a delicate Japanese sensibility in their spatial arrangements. But in general, administrators and experts during this period, in their zeal to elevate the life and culture of the city's people, adopted an attitude (at least at the level of ideals) that rejected the existing history

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and traditions of the city as premodern relics. As a result, nearly all of the traditional restaurant districts along the Sumida River, as well as the commoner living spaces among the alleyways of the low city, were fated to disappear. Nevertheless, the dense urban context handed down from Edo remained alive in its essence. People's concern for the city was high, and their concept of chic city life was passed on to modern Tokyo. The result was an attractive urban environment composed of a mixture of old and new elements. At some unconscious level, the existing urban context was put to skillful use, and an urban space peculiar to Japanese modernism was elaborated, which included bridgeside plazas and corner lots. Although administrators and urban experts at the time viewed the city as an organism,15 their judgment of its historical and cultural values was superficial. Indifference to the city's legacy mounted during the postwar period of economic growth, and technology devoid of intellectual substance dominated. In cities throughout the country, historical neighborhoods and local cultures were razed, while the homogenization of urban space continued relentlessly. Because of a city planning that concentrated on large-scale development, the view of the city as "livedin space" was suppressed for years. Today's renascent age of the city is a phase considerably different from the era of modernism. The city's modernization and industrial development exacted a heavy price in the form of a wrecked urban and natural environment, and in the loss of local individuality. From the selfexamination that came with this loss have come strong demands for an urban policy that values the quality of citizens' lives. As the slogans — "Culture," "Nature," "History," "Tradition" - adopted by many local governments make clear, groping efforts are under way to create urban localities with their own individual identities. We are seeing a phenomenon that is the reverse of past experience, an element in the production of local individuality. Attention is now being given to places and urban spaces that somehow slipped through the net of urban planning bent on modernization, to places that have continued without interruption at the everyday level with the tenacity that marks anthropological structures, and to places that lend attractiveness to the cities as they are today. What places are they? They are groves at local shrines, landmarks next to water and vegetation, places that are tied to natural elements such as canals, riversides, and embankments. They are city neighborhoods, living spaces along alleyways, entertainment centers and districts overflowing with excitement —those

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typically Japanese spaces that give urban life its zip. They are all the places that city planning has virtually ignored. For cities in Japan, which have assumed a position at the world's economic and technological vanguard, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find foreign models. In fact, we have entered an era when Europeans and Americans, in their search for something that can transcend Western rationalism, are turning an anxious gaze toward Japanese culture, architecture, and sense of urban space. A way of thinking has emerged that seeks to rediscover the values of the existing urban space and the cityscape, which were formed from people's lives and culture during the long sweep of history from Edo to modern Tokyo. It regards these values as a vital key to the formation of our environment in the years to come. This is an idea that is most welcome indeed, for itself and for its potential contribution to Tokyo as a unique international city. This reconsideration of familiar urban spaces and cityscapes, which places the problems of the city and its environment within the dimensions of everyday living, should play a major role in promoting the participation of the people of Tokyo in making their own city. The problem is how to link this shift in values to the logic and technique of creating urban communities with an individual identity. With patient and sincere effort, and with the people's renewed concern to encourage us, it will surely be possible in the Tokyo of the twentyfirst century, which will transcend the age of modernism and be based on a still more pluralistic sense of values.

Afterword

Of all the cities in the world, none has changed as rapidly as Tokyo. In the years since 198s, when this book was first published, Tokyo's experience has been unprecedented. Now, on the occasion of the book's appearance in English translation, I would like to offer a personal retrospective on the movements of the past few years. The years 198s and 1986 were extraordinarily significant for the city of Tokyo. First came the "Tokyo boom," marked by a flood of publications concerning Edo and Tokyo. Activities aimed at rediscovering the values of "history, life, and culture" in the urban space called Tokyo had been emerging in every field; during these years they suddenly seemed to acquire a coherent shape. For those of us at Hosei University in the Group for the Study of the City That Is Tokyo, who had been humbly walking the city streets one step at a time, the boom's arrival came as a delightful surprise. This shift in values took place against a social background worth considering. Following the Oil Shock of 1973, Japanese society regained its balance and looked back, calmly and dispassionately, at the reckless, breakneck pace of its advance to modernity. Its commitment to production gave way completely to a sustained concern for the city and the environment we share, and people began to turn their intellectual attention to matters of history and culture. As the limits of a modern city and architecture driven solely by the pursuit of rationality and functionality became all too clear, the move toward a "postmodernism" capable of overcoming these limits grew in strength. Increasingly, our attention was drawn to the remarkable extent to which Edo's premodern culture 217

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AFTERWORD

accorded with this movement. Thus, in our attempts to create a new set of values for postindustrial society, we frequently found ourselves referring to the past. The mass media—television, magazines — also gave generous attention to Tokyo's "town watching," leading many residents to the pleasures of exploring the city on foot for themselves. The metropolitan government and the ward administrations also discovered the special character of our region; it was gratifying to see this awareness reflected in community-building projects. Led by Ogi Shinzo and his associates, a call for Edo-Tokyo studies went out. I participated in various activities related to this theme, among them the compilation of a dictionary of Edo-Tokyo studies {EdoTokyo-gaku jiten; Sanseido, 1987). Instead of following convention and treating Edo and Tokyo as separate entities, we argued for a single perspective emphasizing the continuities between them. Our conceptual approach—urban studies that take Edo-Tokyo as their object—was innovative. And an interdisciplinary research group called the Edo-Tokyo Forum has produced a work of interest (Ogi Shinzo, ed., Edo Tokyo 0 yomu [Reading Edo-Tokyo]; Chikkuma Shobo, 1991). As an exchange student in Italy, I had learned the fascination of "reading the city" while roaming the streets of Venice; this experience became the basis for the walking explorations of Tokyo that I have conducted since then. I can readily understand why a concern for urban studies is now on the rise in Japan. As any society matures, its residents' attention is naturally drawn to the city in which they live. At the same time, massive development projects were also getting under way in Tokyo. We can see now that the rapidly expanding bubble economy was just getting its start at this point. The number of foreign residents in Japan increased suddenly. Computers and word processors began to make their way into our everyday lives; the waves of "internationalization" and "information-orientation" poured over us. Tokyo became a world financial center. The transition from an industrial society that makes "things" to an advanced information society that circulates money and information began to take on a clearly recognizable shape. And with it, the Tokyo cityscape was transformed. The demand for office space skyrocketed, and before long outrageous debates were filling the air —How many super-highrises would be necessary to meet it? One hundred? No, two hundred! Central districts that had somehow preserved the wooden houses of the old low city were targeted; with illegal land speculators at work behind the scenes, high-

AFTERWORD

219

rise after highrise appeared in relentless succession. As the price of land went through the roof, it became increasingly difficult to own a home in Tokyo and the ill effects of Tokyo's extreme concentration of functions began to make themselves felt. Under these conditions, one project after another was proposed to renovate Tokyo, each promising to solve the city's problems while transforming it into a center for international finance. Tokyo's coastal zone, with its rows of factories and warehouses, found itself suddenly in the spotlight as the setting for this development. Vast tracts of landfill, long slumbering in disuse, took center stage. A plethora of proposals to erect a glittering city of the future along the shoreline appeared, some of which have now been brought to completion. English phrases such as "The Waterfront" and "The Bay Area" were deployed to polish the image of the coastal zone, and it became chic to use them. Among publications on the topic of Tokyo, works concerned with history and culture were slowly but steadily replaced by a spate of crude writings concerning the rebuilding of the city or the land problem. As the massive projects progressed, historic buildings vanished, one by one, their long-time residents driven from their homes. For those of us who made a practice of exploring the city, this was a stressful time indeed. During this time, I was extending the object of my work in spatial anthropology to include explorations of the meaning of Tokyo's amusement districts from the end of the Pacific War to the present; I also conducted field surveys of festivals and urban space throughout Tokyo. And by adding new routes on my various expeditions by boat out to Tokyo Bay along the city's internal waterways — the Sumida River and the canals —I expanded my field studies of the capital's urban space. Even as I did so, I was beset with anxiety over the lighthearted way in which the city plunged into convulsive change without the benefit of any clear plan or perspective. Fortunately, interest in the kind of urban research I have been pursuing has risen dramatically in recent years; vigorous activities are under way in a broad range of fields. One symbolic development has been a research project on the urban character of Islam directed by Itagaki Yuzo. Not only researchers concerned with Islamic cities but also specialists in a number of cultures have joined forces to apply an interdisciplinary comparative approach; the result has been a most stimulating debate on the city, its functions, forms, structure, and meaning. Because

220

AFTERWORD

of a long-standing interest in the Islamic city, I joined the discussions from an architectural perspective. I emerged greatly informed, but above all I benefited from coming into contact with the deepening interest in Japanese urban studies. And then I was able to spend last year in my old haunt of Venice and wander this bewitching water-borne labyrinth once more, though from a perspective different from that of my student days. My fifteen years' accumulated experience of research in Tokyo proved enormously useful in Venice. To unravel the ciy in terms of its spatial anthropology was fascinating work indeed. It resulted in a book, Venetsia—sutjo no meikyu toshi (Venice, the city—a water-borne labyrinth; Kodansha, 1992). Returning to Japan this past April, I found conditions in Tokyo transformed yet again. The air was filled with an unfamiliar phrase: "the collapse of the bubble economy." The development fever had completely subsided. Everywhere I heard talk that I could barely believe: of new office buildings suffering for a lack of tenants, of land and condominium prices plummeting. The money games and real estate speculation that had been played out in this illusory world had come crashing to an end. In a sense, the collapse represented a return to normality, as though the economy had raced through a frenetic development boom in a handful of years, only to stall out. The experience has made it painfully obvious that Japan is far from being a mature society. Now that Tokyo's castle built on sand has collapsed, the city needs to return once more to a firmly grounded way of thinking, from which it can conceptualize the future. Without question, "history, life, and culture" will be recognized as essential to such a conceptualization. Scenes and tales of the city's past will continue to be brought to light. The approach taken in this book—that is, to make clear the layered arrangement of history and culture that forms the very basis of the city's life — seems increasingly effective. Happily, interest among foreigners in Tokyo's urban space is also on the rise. With a stabilizing order and structure emerging somehow amid boundless energy and apparent chaos, the city seems to possess a strange and marvelous attraction as an anticipation of the future. I hope the English translation of this book will make a small contribution to the lively development of comparative research into urban space at the international level. Jinnai Hidenobu August 14,1992

Notes

Introduction 1. "Nozomareru Edo-Tokyó-gaku" (What we should expect from EdoTokyo studies; Bungaku, April 1983). 2. Kawazoe Noboru, Tokyoo nogenfùkei (The original landscape of Tokyo; NHK Books).

i.

The High City

1. Nakamura Yujirò, "Sumika toshite no toshi" (The city as a dwelling-place; Asahi shinbun, September 24,1981, evening ed.). 2. Higuchi Tadahiko, Nihon no keikan (Vistas of Japan; Shunjusha). 3. Kawazoe Noboru, Tokyo nogenfuukei (The original landscape of Tokyo; NHK Books). 4. Naitò Akira, Edo to Edo-jò (Edo and Edo Castle; Kajima Shuppankai). 5. Kirishiki Shinjirò, "Tenshò-Keichó-Kan'eiki Edo shigaichi kensetsu ni okeru keikan sekkei" (Vista planning in the layout of Edo neighborhoods during the Tensho, Keichó, and Kan'ei periods; Toshi kenkyu hdkoku, no. 24 [Tokyo Toritsu Daigaku], 1971). 6. Suzuki Kenji, "Hatamoto jukyo no toshi ni okeru sonzai yótai" (Forms of hatamoto residences found in cities; Kenchiku shigaku, no. 2). 7. Quoted in Kojimachi kushi (History of KSjimachi Ward). 8. Takayanagi Kaneyoshi, Edo jidai gokenin no seikatsu (The life of house retainers during the Edo period; Yuzankaku). 9. Kawazoe, Tokyo no £enfutikei. 10. Alleys are generally made in the south or east side to maximize the exposure to the sun. 221

222

2.

NOTES TO PAGES 71-116 T h e Cosmology of a City of Water

1. Suzuki Masao, Edo no kawa, Tokyo no kawa (Rivers of Edo, rivers of Tokyo; N H K Books). 2. Takeuchi Makoto, "Edo no toshi keizai to kura" (Warehouses and the urban economy of Edo; Shizen to bunka, Spring 1984). 3. Suzuki, Edo no kawa. 4. Quoted in Bakumatsu Nihon zue (Late Tokugawa Japan, illustrated; Yushódò). 5. Cf. Kikkóman shòyu shi (History of the Kikkdman Shòyu Company; 1968). 6. Edo kenchiku sowa (A collection of anecdotes concerning the architecture of Edo; Chùò Kòronsha). 7. "Edobashi hirokóji no keisei to kòzò" (The formation and structure of the Edobashi Hirokóji; Rekishi chirigaku kaihó, no. 101 [1978]). Based on Edobashi hirokóji narabi moyori kyuki (Old records concerning the avenue of Edobashi and its vicinity). 8. Higuchi Tadahiko, Nihon no keikan (Vistas of Japan; Shunjusha). 9. Maki Fumihiko, Miegakure sum toshi (The city, in sight and out; SD Sensho). 10. Amino Yoshihiko, Muen-kugai-raku (Heibonsha). 11. Kurimoto Shin'ichirò, Hikari no toshi, yemi no toshi (City of light, city of darkness; Seidosha). 12. "Fuzokuga no naka no shibaimachi" (The theater district as depicted in genre paintings), in Kinseifuzoku zufu (Early modern customs as represented in pictures), vol. io: Kabuki (Shógakkan). 13. Kawazoe Noboru, Tokyo nogenfiikei (The original landscape of Tokyo; N H K Books). 14. Hirosue Tamotsu, Henkai no akusho (Border areas of ill repute; Heibonsha). 15. Modan toshi Tokyo—Nihon no 1920 nendai (Chuo Kòronsha). 16. Maeda Ai, Toshi kukan no naka no bungaku (Literature and urban space; Chikuma Shobò). 17. Haga Toru, Edo no hikaku bunkashi (A comparative cultural history of Edo; N H K Books). 18. Bakumatsu Nihon zue (Late Tokugawa Japan, illustrated; Yushódò). 19. Hasegawa Takashi, Toshi kairo (Corridors of the city; Sagami Shobó). 20. Arthur Symons, Cities ofItaly (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1907), 71. zi. Aeba Takao, 'Toshi to mizu: Shinteki genshó ni atarashii shiten" (The city and water: New perspectives on mental phenomena; Tomiuri shinbun, June 11,1980, evening ed.). 22. Hatsuta Toru, "Kenchiku ni arawareta kindai" (The modern as expressed in architecture; Nikkan kensetsu kògyóshinbun, April 19,1982). 23. Hanasaki Kazuo, Edo no deai-jaya (Rendezvous-teahouses of Edo; Kinsei Fuzoku Kenkyukai). 24. Fujimori Terunobu, Meiji no toshi keikaku (City planning during the Meiji period; Twanami Shoten).

NOTES TO PAGES 122-177

3.

223

The Rhetoric of the Modern City

1. Suzuki Masao, Edo nokawa, Tökyönokawa (Rivers of Edo, rivers ottokyo; NHK Books). 2. Yokozeki Ei'ichi, Edo no saka, Tokyo no saka (Hills of Edo, hills of Tokyo; Yühö Shoten). 3. Jinnai Hidenobu, Toshi no runesansu (The urban renaissance; Chükö Shinsho). 4. Okawa Naomi, Kara, nibon no minka (Japanese houses in color; Yama to Keikokusha). 5. Jinnai Hidenobu et al., Tokyo no machi 0 yomu—Shitaya, Neßishi no rekishiteki seikatsu kankyö (Reading Tokyo — a historical study of the living environments of Shitaya and Negishi; Sagami Shobö). 6. Tamai Tetsuo, "Nagaya no jünin-tachi" (Inhabitants of row houses; is [special issue on housing], March 1984). 7. Lee O-Young, Chijimi shikö no Nibonjin (The Japanese and their penchant for miniaturization; Gakuseisha). 8. Maeda Ai, Toshi kükan no naka no bungaku (Literature and urban space; Chikuma Shobö). 9. "Ginza roji-orojii" (The alley-ology of Ginza; Asabi shinbun, September 15,1981, morning ed.). 10. Der Turn, als Symbol und Erlebnis; translated into Japanese by Ikeda Nozomu as Tonoshisö (The idea of towers; Kawade Shobö Shinsha). 11. Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle). 12. Maeda, Toshi kükan no naka no bungaku. 13. Hatsuta Tora, Toshi no Meiji (Meiji of the cities; Chikuma Shobö). 14. Tamai Tetsuo, "Kinsei toshi to machiya" (Early modern cities and city houses), in Köza nihon¿¡ijutsu no shakai-shi, kenchiku (Social history of Japanese technology, architecture; Nihon Hyöronsha). 15. Ibid. 16. Hatsuta, Toshi twMeiji. 17. Fujimori Terunobu, Meiji no toshi keikaku (City planning during the Meiji period; Iwanami Shoten).

4.

Modernism and Its Urban Forms

1. Köbö no 1920-nendai (The dazzling 1920s; Asahi Shinbunsha). 2. Unno Hiroshi, Modan toshi Tokyo (Tokyo, modern metropolis; Chüö Köronsha). 3. Orishita Yoshinobu, Toshi keikaku köshürokuzensbü (Compendium of training courses in city planning; 1922). 4. Unno, Modan toshi Tokyo. 5. Teitomfitkkojigyd shi (Chronicle of projects undertaken in Tokyo's postearthquake recovery). 6. Tokyo no Hashi Kenkyükai, "Hashi to chiiki kankyö dezain no shiso" (Bridges and the idea of regional environmental design; Nikkan kensetsu kögyö shinbun, February 1,1983).

224

NOTES TO PAGES 196-215

7. Teitofitkkö ski (A history of Tokyo's post-earthquake recovery). 8. Ishihara Kenji, Gendai toshi no keikaku (Contemporary city planning). 9. Orishita, Toshi keikaku köshüroku zenshû. 10. Tokyö-tö Zöen Kensetsugyö Kyödö Krnniai, ed., Midori no Tokyo shi (A history of green Tokyo; Shikösha). 11. Zöenka Shüdan, "Köen no un'ei kanri" (Management and administration of parks; ula, no. 6). 12. "Apätomento hausu o ronzu" (Consider the apartment house; Kenchiku zasshi, no. 379). 13. Quoted in Oroshita, Toshi keikaku köshüroku zenshû. 14. Matsumoto Kyöji, ed. "Seikatsushi: Döjunkai apäto" (A history of lifestyles: The Döjunkai apartments; Toshijûtaku, July 1972). 15. Ishihara, Gendai toshi no keikaku.

Index

Illustrations are referenced with italic page numbers. Abeyama, 38 aerial city views, 69,104,112,120 age of a city, 1-2,171-73 Age of Civilization and Enlightenment (1870s), 138-43,172; waterfront changes during, 113-14 Akasaka-Azabu highland, 15 alleyways: backstreet society of, 124-29, 12s, 199, 213; commoner row houses on, 52, 61—63,124,128; low city within high city, 58-59; street replanning and, 99,129-30; underground streets as, 130-34. See also avenues; streets America, North. See United States Amino Yoshihiko, 87, 88, 90 amusement centers: along the avenues, iJ-82, 89-93; contemporary, 97; near shrines, 83, 87-89, 101; underground streets as, 130-134; waterfront area, 80Si, 100-105,108-18 anarchy, areas of. See border areas, city anthropology, spatial. See spatial anthropology Aoyama district, 57-58 Aoyama D6ri (Atsugi-kaid6) ridge road, 14

38-39; urban-style, 206-14. See also houses; residential areas apartments, studio, 212-13 appearance, design for, 28 arcades, pedestrian, 132,133 archery ranges, 81 architects, 114,115,116,117,150,152,156, 169,177,182, 207; foreign, 140,144, 153,156,163,169; landscape, 174-75, 199, 203-4; roles of, 143,172-73,174, 177,186. See also individual architect names architecture: baroque design and, 108-9, no, 124,127-28,169,192-93, 202, 204; external space and, 22, 28,147-59; Gothic style, 116,185; lot, 22,163,165; modern emphasis on, 140-42; modern waterside, 181-88; modernist apartment house, 38-39,193,19s, 206-14; nonurban within-city, 163,165; postwar growth era, 210,212; Spanish colonialstyle, 36,37, 38-39,213. See also buildings; lots, city art. See views, city; individual artist names Asagaya, 133 Asahi Shinbunsha Theater Building, 187, m Asakusa, 95, 99,100,108-10; sacred spaces in, 15, 98 Atsugi-kaidô ridge road, 14

apartment houses: Dojunkai public housing, 207-12,208,209; modernist, 38-39, 193,19S, 206-14; privately-built, 36-39, 213-14; Spanish colonial-style, 36,37, 225

226

INDEX

Australian embassy site, 31,32 automobile traffic, 127,131,132. See also plazas, public avenues: amusement centers along, 80-81, 89-93,91,97-98; firebreak, 80-81, 90; Japanese versus European, 124-25,126, 128,130,174-75; landmark-oriented, 41, 120-22, 121, 159. See also highways; streets axial spaces, 160 ;jobd system of, 120-21; landmark-oriented, +1,159; in public building lots, 163-67,191, 211; river and canal, 67-68. See also roadways Azabu district, 35-38,57-58, 64 Babasaki Dori Building, iss-56 backstreet society, 124-29. See also alleyways; low-city Edo-Tokyo bakuhan system, 59 Bancho, Edo-period, 40-48 bannermen. See shogunal retainer residences baroque style. See space, urban barracks. See warrior class residences billboard architecture, 172-73 blocks, apartment (danchi), 206, 213 blocks, Edo-period city, 40-43,42,51-52. See also lots, city boat travel, 71, 71-77, 91-92,100,179; water buses, 174,177 Bockmann, Wilhelm, 159,169,193 border areas, city, 9 , 1 4 8 , 1 4 9 ; free space of, 87, 92; sacred and "bad," 98-100; temples relocated to, 15, 26, 86, 87. See also space, urban boulevards. See avenues boundaries: block, 42-43; lot, 9 branch roads. See roadways Brick Town. See Ginza district bridges, 69,71,138; amusement centers near, 89-93; modern buildings near, 141,150,152,156-57,181-88; modern post-earthquake, 118,176-79,184; street-corner plazas near, 188-95; theatrical space near, 93-100; traffic plazas at, 90-91, 92,117,141,147,178-81,196; waterside space near, 69, 103-5,113-18, 177-81. See also water system; names of bridges brothels. See pleasure quarters bubble economy, 218-19, 220 building facades. See facades, street

buildings: apartment house, 36,37, 38-39, 206-14,208,209; axial and symmetrical, 160; bank, 114-JJ, 117,156,183; castlestyle townhouse, 148,149; contextualizing, 141-42,186-88; corner-lot, 147-59, 187,190-95; courtyard, 209; diagonally symmetrical, 191-92; domed, 153-54; examining, 7; height of, 60,138-47,148, 183; office, 47,56,181-85,182,183, 21819, 220; porches on, 158; "protrudingbeam," 26; public, 115,144-45,147, 150,159-70; rarity of historic, 2, 9,171, 215, 219; refinement of, 127; residentialstyle public, 159-70; street-corner design and, 190-95; waterside modern, 181-88; waterside open-air, 100,102-3; wood, 9, 26,124,128. See also warehouses; Western elements buildings, with towers, 161-A2,164,165, 168-69, ¡84; and city skylines, 138-47, 139,151-52,169; clock tower buildings, 144-47, '43,14-S, 146,152-S3,156-S7- See also public buildings building sites. See lots, city buses, water, 71,174,177 business districts, 116,130, 218-19. See also waterside space campuses, university, 25-26,31,33,165 canals, 31,106,122; filled-in, 67, 77,174, 188; map of Edo, 72-75; touring, 6668, 77,186; transportation, 71, 72-77. See also rivers; water system castle-town: Edo as a, 4-5, 9-10,13,51-52, 121-22,136; influence of, 161-62,193; residential segregation patterns, 16-18, 69-70,122,124; warrior districts, 3960. See also shogunal retainer residences cathedrals, European, 86 centers, city, 86,137-38,154,159, 206-7 Central Post and Telegraph Office Building, 152, IS3 Central Post Office building, us, 147,150 centrifugalism of urban structure, 41-42, 99,138, 213-14. See also space, urban change, in Tokyo: daimyo site transformation and, 31-39,34, 6 2 , 1 1 5 , 1 1 6 , 1 4 1 , 144-45,159,163-64; Edo-era continuity and, 9,160,163,166-68; intensity of, 9-10; modernism and, 159-60, 213-16; post-earthquake, 8, 99,117-18,

INDEX 174,175-88,199-206; and preserved spatial structures, 31-33,1+4-45,160, 163-65; recent research and, 217-20; urbanization, 173; from water-based to land-based city, 147,174,181,189, 196-98; within city lots, 19-22,129-30, 160,163,193. See also growth, city Chicago parks, 198-99 Chinese gables, 142, 158, 163,164, i6j Choya Shinbunsha Building, 151,153 cities: conception of, 5,193-95; development of, 8-9,101-2,192-93, 214-16 city buildings. See public buildings city lots. See lots, city city maps. See maps, city city parks. See parks, public city planning: citizen-oriented, 171-73, 199, 206-7; contextualism and, 186-88, 209, 215-16; Edo-style, 38, 43, 49,5052, 55-56, 59; genealogy of, 192-93, 214-16; historical perspectives on, 8-9, 60, 64-65,106-7,171-73, 214-16, 21718, 220; inner-city policy, 207; Japanese versus European, 41-42,159-60, 169,192-93, 215-16; low-city, 121-22; measurement system (Jobo), 40,51; modern, 19,128,159,169,172-73,18688, 201-2; postmodernism and recent developments, 59,171, 214, 217-20; reconsideration of, 214-16; and topography in Edo, 16-19, 64-65; urban scale and, 119-34; values and, 171-73, 193-95, 214-16; for water and green space, 68,198-206; Western ideas of, 2, 6, 41-42, 68,117-18,119,132, 154-55, 159-60,166,192. See also government planning city plans: grid pattern, 2,39, 41,122,149, 155,190; land development and, 36, 38; park plans, 194,202,203. See also lots, city; maps, city civil engineering. See engineering, civil class system residential areas, Edo-era, 4, 16-18 clock towers. See buildings, with towers coastal zone development, 219 commoner class districts: blocks, 51-52; city of water, 68-72,103,104; low city, 4,10, 31, 61-64,123-24; public buildings and, 161-62; workplace-and-home architecture, 26,28, 61-62,161. See also low-city Edo-Tokyo

227

communities. See districts; neighborhoods companies, theater, 107 Conder, Josiah, 32,156 condominiums, 47,56, 60, 64, 207 context, planning in, 141-42,186-88, 209, 215-16 corner, street, 190 corner-lot buildings, 141,178-81; with corner entryways, 193-9s; intersections and, 147-59,187,189-90 courtyards, apartment house, 209 cultural modernism, 38-39 "culture," popularity of, 173, 206, 215 Daiei Building, 181,1S2,183 daimyô establishments, 22-39,29,102; conceptual diagram of, 24; guardian gates, 25-2Î, 30; hatamoto residences and, 44-45; preserved spatial structure of, 31-33,144-45,160,163-65; ridge roads and, 23-25; site development of historic, 31-39,34, 62,115,116,141,14445,159,160,163-64; siting and buildings placement in, 22-23, 29-30; sizes of, 51-52; topography of, 12,14-15,58 democracy, 6,173,199 design, 28. See also architecture; axial spaces; symmetry development projects, 215; bubble economy, 218-19; Dôjunkai apartments, 207-12,208,209; urban apartment houses and, 60, 206-14; urban renewal, 128,131,144,146-47,159, 169,171-73. See also growth, city diagonal streets, 149-50,192-93. See also corner-lot buildings; streets districts: block sizes, 40-41; organization of, 122-23; topography of Edo, 11-12. See also neighborhoods; individual district names docks. See waterside space Dôjunkai apartments, 207-12,208,209 dolphin tower figure, 161 -62 Dôtonbori, 98 downtown: centrifugalism away from, 4142, 99,138, 213-14; revitalizing, 105, 171, 207, 214-16. See also apartment houses; waterside space driveways, circular, 168 earthquake-recovery, 8, 99,117-18,174; parks, 199-206; public housing,

228

INDEX

earthquake-recovery (continued) 207-12; waterside modernization, 175-88 east-west ridge roads, 24 Edobashi Bridge area: architecture, 150, 152,184; waterside activities, 80-82, 81, us

Edobashi Hirókóji avenue, 80-82, Si E d o Castle, 69-70,136; moats, 71-72,122; Yamanote districts around, 11,15. See also castle-town E d o period: residences (see daimyo establishments; warrior class residences); urban space (see high-city Edo-Tokyo; low-city Edo-Tokyo). See also E d o period, Tokyo E d o period, Tokyo: aerial view, 69; age of, 171-73; city formation during, 4-5; contemporary structure correspondence to, 9 , 6 4 - 6 5 ; expansion of, 13,14-15; research on, 218; sacred spaces placement in, 15; three layers of city formation in, 4 - 6 ; the water system of, x-xi, 68-72. See also castle-town; topography Edo-Tokyo Forum, 218 Eitaibashi Bridge waterside, 103-5,104, 106 elevated highways, 58, 67,179,188 embassies, foreign, 45,46 Ende, H e r m a n n , 159,169,193 engineering, civil: bridge construction, 177-79; water system, 70-72 entertainment, public. See amusement centers; recreation areas environment: buildings context and, 126, 141-42,186-88, 209, 215-16; changing skyline and, 134-47; damage to, 68, 112. See also space, urban European cities: avenues in, 124-25,126, 128,130,174-75; compared to Japanese cities, 27-28, 86, 90-91, 95, 96, 99,120, 124,134-36,154; culture in mature, 102; Italian, 8-9, 80,102,105-6,107, 220; as modernization models, 14344, iSS-56,169,174-75, 206, 216; nature and, 129,134, 215-16; sacred spaces in, 86,135-36; tourist landmarks in, 154-55,157- See also Venice; Western elements expansion, city. See growth, city facades, street, 29,3S, 47, S7,63; design for appearance, 28; and front entrances,

164,165,166; London-style, iss-56,169; modernist, 36; of public buildings, 161-66,162; row house, 30; shop front, 28,208. See also plazas, public; views, city factory water pollution, 112 fences. See walls and fences, lot fires: Great Meireki Fire of 1657,5,13, 23, 26, 43, 61, 88; warehouse construction and, 74-75; watchtowers for, 136, 144 First National Bank building, 114-/5,14041,161 fish market, Nihonbashi, 78,79, 80,103 floor plans: of apartments, 37,193,19s; c o m m o n e r house, 62; room sizes and, 49, S4; warrior house, 54, #. See also lots, city foot guards. See shogunal retainer residences f o o t traffic, 131-34,132,133 foreign cities. See European cities; United States foreigners: interest in Tokyo by, 3, 220; neighborhoods of, 45,46. See also architects, foreign fountain, park, 2 0 4 - i free plazas, 193,198, 201-2, 205 freight depots, 196 Friends of the Park, 204 front entrances, residential-style, 164,165, 166

Fukagawa, 49,101,103-5, i04i Nishimura's study of, 106-7 Fukiya-chö, 95, ptf-97 Furukawa River, 12,31 Gakushuin School, 164,165 garden cities, 47, 206 gardens: apartment house, 211, 212; daim y o residence, 25,102; former daimyo site, 24,33, 34,161 -«2,166; hatamoto residence, 4 4 - 4 5 ; loss of, 53, 68; Western-style, 32,134. See also parks, public; yards gates: city border, 148,149; group residence street, 49,56; guardian (gosbuáenmon), 15-20,30; neighborhood partition, 123-24,128; to public building lots, 143,161-62,163,164; residence c o m p o u n d , 25-26,30; row house, 30,4S, 47- See also walls and fences, lot Gaudi, Antonio, 202

INDEX General Staff Bureau of Measurement map. See maps, city geometrical designs. See axial spaces; symmetry Ginza district, 128,131,148,195; Brick Town, us, 127,140,150-51,152,159, 169; Ginza Dori 4-chome intersection, I50-5I, IS2

go-down warehouse buildings, 28,145-415 gokenin. See shogunal retainer residences Gokokuji Temple, 55-56 Gothic style architecture, 116,185 government buildings, 207-8; offices and ministries, 59, us, 142,163,164; police station, 166; post offices, 11s, 147,150, 152, IS3; public housing, 207-12. See also public buildings; schools government planning: street reorganizations, 129-30,193,199; use of space, 78, 80,129-30,169,172. See also city planning grand residences, 161-69. See also daimyo establishments; warrior class residences Great Kanto Earthquake. See earthquakerecovery green environments. See gardens; parks, public grid pattern city plans, 2, 39, 41,122,149, 155,190. See also lots, city Group for the Study of the City That Is Tokyo, 217 Group for the Study of Tokyo and Its Neighborhoods, ix-x, xi-xii group housing. See apartment houses; condominiums group residences, warrior class, 48-60,50, Sl,S4 groups, Tokyo study, ix-x, xi-xii, 217, 218 growth, city: apartment houses and, 206-14; patterns of, 14,15-16, 42,1012,131; stages of, 106-7. See also change, in Tokyo guardian gates, 25-26,30 Hachiman shrines, &2S3, 85,101 Hamacho Park, 175 Hasegawa Takashi, 106 hatamoto. See shogunal retainer residences Hattori Watch Company Building, 147, 153, ¡54 Hayashi Tadayuki, 115,150 height, of buildings, 60,138-47,148,183

229

high-city Edo-Tokyo, 138; daimyô establishments, 22-39; hatamoto residences, 39-48; land use, 14-16, 60, 202-3; logic of place, 16-19,52; low city within, 59, 61-64; organization by lots, 19-22,52; parks, 202-5, 204-i; pleasure quarters, 111; reading, 7-10, 10-16,31-33, 64-65; residential districts, 16-19; roadways, 12-14; temples and shrines, 88; topography of, 10-72, 24-27,42,52; Yamanote, 11-12 highlands. See plateaux of Tokyo highways, elevated, 58, 67,179,188. See also roadways Higuchi Tadahiko, x-xi, 82 Hijiribashi Bridge, 177,178 hills, of Tokyo, 11,138 Hiraga Gennai, 91 Hiroshige, 31, 76,79, U, 96,103-5, ¡04,120, 121,174 Hiroshige III, 162 Hirosue Tamotsu, 98 "history, life, and culture" values, 60, 6 4 65, 215-16, 217^18, 220 HOgaku-za Theater, 187 Hokusai, 76,138 Hongô Dôri (Nakasendô) ridge road, 14, 24-25 Hongô uplands, 11, 24-26 hotels, n o , 140,141 house retainers. See shogunal retainer residences houses: back-alley row, 61 -63, 124-29; commoner, 28, 51-52, 61-64; floor plans of,S4,55, 62; law officer, 53-55, S4i row, 29, 29-30,32,36, 38-39, 45, 6163, 124,126; with yards, 48,54-tf. See also apartment houses housing, public. See apartment houses; condominiums Humbert, Aimé, 76,105-6 Hyôtan Pond (Ooike), 108,109-10, m Ichigaya, 52-53, 82-ij Imaizumi Mine, Nagori noyume, 100 industrialization, 77,105,112,173, 207 inflation, real estate, 173, 218-19, 220 "inner-city policy," 207 Inoshita Kiyoshi, 203-4 inferiority. See space, urban interregional highways. See roadways intersections. See corner-lot buildings; plazas, public

230

INDEX

Ise-chò area, 75 Ishihara Kenji, 1 9 8 - 9 9 Itagaki Yuzò, 219 Italian embassy site, 31,33 Italy, 1 3 4 - 3 5 , 1 4 3 , 1 5 4 ; city revival in, 8 - 9 ; Venice, 8 - 9 , 8 0 , 1 0 2 , 1 0 5 - 6 , 1 0 7 , 2 2 0 Itô Hanzò, 156 Ito Kichitarò, 156 Itò Kikuzô, 80 Ito Tamekichi, 153 jôbô city pian system, 4 0 , 5 1 Jôhoku district, 11,13 Jônan district, 11-12,13, 27 Jòsai district, 11,13 Jonisò, in Shinjuku, i n Jûshi Elementary School, 1 9 1 - 9 2 jûshin (senior vassals), 4 0 Kabuki. See theater districts Kabuto-chô distria, 11 $-16 Kagurazaka district, 5 2 - 5 3 , 5 6 Kaiunbashi Bridge, 114-is, 1 4 1 , 1 6 1 - 6 2 Kakigara-chô Park, 202 Kanda Myôjin shrine, 8 6 - 8 7 Kanda Produce Market, 78 Kanda River (Hirakawa), 11, 70 Kandagawa River, 7 0 - 7 1 , 7 7 , 7 8 , 9 0 , 1 7 4 ; bridges and plazas, 1 7 7 , 1 8 1 , 1 9 6 Kan'eiji temple (Toeisan Kan'eiji), in Ueno, 15, 87 Kaneyasu cosmetics shop, 25 Kankôba Exhibition Hall, 138,139, ij6 Kantô Earthquake of 1923. See earthquakerecovery Katushika Hokusai. See Hokusai. Kawazoe Noboru, 49 Keiò University, 33 Kikuzaka, in Hongô, 62,63 Kirishiki Shinjirò, 120 Kiyochika, 1 1 4 , u s , 174 Kiyosago Dòri Apartments, 211 Koami-chô, 77 Kobayashi Kiyochika. See Kiyochika Kobiki-chô, P 7 - 9 8 Kobinata uplands, 5 5 - 5 6 Kohima Watch Store, 146 Kôjimachi plateau, 4 0 - 4 1 Kûshû-kaidô ridge road, 14 Krishiki Shinjirò, 120 Kudanshita Building (Imagawakôji Common Building), 212

kumiyashiki. See warrior class residences Kuroda family residence, 30 land allotments. See lots, city landmarks: along the water, 8 2 - 8 9 , 1 0 0 , 1 1 4 - 1 5 , 1 8 1 - 8 8 ; avenue orientation to, 41, 1 2 0 - 2 2 , 1 2 1 , 1 5 9 ; buildings and towers as, 1 4 0 - 4 4 , 1 8 1 - 8 8 ; European tourist, 134-35,137; Mount Fuji, 41,69, 7 0 , 9 0 , 1 2 0 , J2i, 1 3 7 - 3 8 ; parcheesi of noted places and, 137; preservation of, 2 1 5 - 1 6 ; shrines as, 8 2 - 8 9 , S 3 , 1 0 1 , n o , 1 7 7 ; topographical features as, 4 1 - 4 3 , 135, i37-38. See also views, city landscape architects, 1 7 4 - 7 5 , 1 9 9 , 2 0 3 - 4 landscaping. See gardens; parks, public land use, 6 5 , 1 4 8 ; conversion from wateroriented, 1 4 7 , 1 7 4 , 1 8 1 , 1 8 9 , 1 9 6 - 9 8 ; high-city, 9 - 1 0 , 1 4 - 1 6 ; low-city, 5 2 ; subdivisions, 38. See also lots, city law officer residences, 53-55,54 licensed quarters. See pleasure quarters lineages, spatial and temporal, ix, 3-6, 162-63,171

London, One Block, iss-56,169 lots, city: changes within, 1 9 - 2 2 , 1 6 0 , 1 6 3 ; commoner house, 28, 61; diagrams of, 24,44, so, si; external space in, 2 2 , 1 6 2 6 3 ; hatamoto residence, 42, 4 3 - 4 4 ; intersection corner, 1 4 1 , 1 4 7 - 5 9 , 1 8 7 , 1 8 9 9 0 , 1 9 3 - 9 S ; irregular waterside, 1 8 5 - 8 6 , 187; for parks, 193-94,202,203; public building, 159-70,191-92; for schools and schoolyards,

191-92,198-206,200,

20s; specifications, 190; street reorganization and, 1 2 9 - 3 0 , 1 9 3 ; walls and fences, 4 6 - 4 7 , 1 6 1 , 1 6 3 , 1 6 5 ; warrior group residence, 4 9 - 5 3 , SO, S i , 58- See also topography, of Tokyo lots, historic. See daimyô establishments love hotels, n o low-city Edo-Tokyo, 31, 4 0 ; Ddjunkai apartments, 207-12,208,209; interior scale of, 1 2 2 - 2 6 ; parks, 1 9 8 - 2 0 2 ; temples and shrines, 8 3 - 8 6 , 8 8 ; waterside space use, 1 0 0 - 1 0 7 , 1 7 3 - 8 8 ; within the high-city, 6 1 - 6 4 . See also commoner class districts low-city pleasure quarters. See pleasure quarters ludic space, 9 1 , 9 4 - 9 5 , 1 0 0 . See also border areas, city

INDEX Maeda Ai, 138,144 Maeda residence gate, 2$-26 Maki Fumihiko, xi, 124 Manseibashi station plaza, 113,197 maps, city: amusement centers, 89; bridges and tree planting, 179,180; canals and waterfront, 71-73,74,180; General Staff Bureau of Measurement (1883-84) scale, 9,38,43,50; high city topography, 12,17; lot diagrams, 24,44, so, si; residential sections, 17; using historical, 9-10, 64-65, 72-73,120 markets, waterfront, 77, 78-82,79,103-5 Marunouchi district, iss, 196 Matsuda Osamu, 94 Matsuzakaya Dry Goods Store, 157-58 measurement systems. See sizes Meiji-period, Tokyo formation during, 5-6 Midd Suji Boulevard, Osaka, 130 military barracks. See warrior class residences miniaturization, 126 Ministry of Finance, 142,163,164 Mita KoyamachO neighborhood, 31-32,3S, 36 Mita Tsunasaka area, 31-33 Mitsubishi Warehouse Building, 183-i^ 18s Mitsui Club site, 31, 32 Mitsui-gumi Headquarters Building: Kaiunbashi Bridge, 114-is, 140-41; Surugacho, 161-62 Mitsui Trust Company, 38 moats, castle, 71-72,122 modern times: modernism and trends in, 214-16; recent developments of, 217-20; waterfront space in, 105, 107-18 modernism: and age of the city, 171-73; apartment houses and, 193,19s, 206-14; cultural, 38-39; station plazas and, 196-98; street-corner plazas and, 188-95; the values of, 172,193-95, 214-16; vest-pocket parks and, 198206,200,201,202,203,20s; the waterside and, 173-88 modernization: 1920's, 6,138,140,159, 175-88; official, 93,172; public buildings and, 163-70 monuments, statuary, 113,197 Mori Ogai, 127

231

mosaic, the city, 159,169 Motomachi Park, 202-3 Mount Fuji, views of, 41,69, 70, 90,120, 121,137-38 Mount Tsukuba, 120,137 movie theaters, 108-9, no Musashino plateau, 11,13,23-26,122,136 Nagai Kafu, 128,138 Nakabashi theater district, 91-94 NakasendO north-south ridge road, 14, 24-25 Nakasu, m-72 names, geographical: hills and valleys, 11, 138; rivers, 67. See also topography, of Tokyo; individual place names nature and the city: Japanese and European conceptions of, 129,134, 215-16; and skyline changes, 134-47. See also gardens; topography, of Tokyo Negishi-Shitaya area, 125-26 neighborhoods, 159, 215-16; apartments and, 209-14; backstreet society, 12329,12s; centered on streets, 42-43, 49, so; as islands, 122-23; roadside, 26 neo-alleys, 130-34 New York City, 1-2,105 Nezumizaka hill, 56, S7 Nihonbashi district, 87,156-57, is8; bridge plaza, 78-79,117, 183; commoner house, 28; fish market, 78, 79, 80,103; waterfront, 72-73,74, 78-7P Nihonbashi River, 70, 95,106; bridge, 74, 80,177,183-84; views, 74,79 Nihon-kan rooming house, 193,19s Nijukkicho district, 53-55 Ningyd-ch& crossing, 190,191 Nishimura Shinji, 106-7 nodes, traffic. See plazas, public north-south ridge roads, 24-25 Ochanomizu canal, 71, 77,177,178 office buildings, 47,56,181-85,182,183, 218-19, 220; government, 59, ns, 142, 163,164 Ogi Shinzo, 4, 218 okachijjumi and omaka-naigumi. See shogunal retainer residences Okuma Yoshikuni, 80 Onagigawa River waterfront, 76-77 Ono Takeo, 207 Opera Hall, 108, no

232

INDEX

Orishita Yoshinobu, 174-75,199 Osaka, 98,130 osakitagutni. See shogunal retainer residences O-Young, Lee, 126 parcheesi of noted places (meisho• styforoku), 137 Paris, France, 154,193, 206, 210; city planning in, 124,128,144,159-60,166,174 parks, public: Chicago, 199; child guidance, 204; city planning for, 24,34, 101,175-76,193-04,198-206; diagonal model, 193-9.4,' earthquake-recovery, 199-206; former daimyo site, 24,34; Friends of the Park, 204; named, 13, 175-76,193-94,202-5; plans of, 194, 202, 203; schools and, 198-206,200,20s; vest-pocket, 198-206,200,201,202,203, 20s; waterside, 101,175-76. See also gardens past, interest in the, 171-73, 217-18, 220 Pax Tokugawa, 102-3 pedestrian streets, 130,131,132,134. See also alleyways peripheries. See border areas, city; space, urban place, the logic of, 16-19 planning. See city planning plans. See city plans; floor plans plateaux of Tokyo, 11-/2,31-33. See also high-city Edo-Tokyo playgoing, by boat, 100 playgrounds, children's, 126,199-200, 202, 203, 204-6,20s plazas, public, 78, 80, 86,113,196; bridgeside traffic, 90-?/, 92,117,147,17881,196; Edo-style and Western-style, i/7-18,124-25, 134-35, 143,147-48,154, 179,188-89; free plazas, 193,198, 201-2, 205-6; modern buildings and, 181-88, 194-95; parks as, 198-206; railroad station, 196-98; street-corner traffic, 154-55; street-crossing plazas, 189-90, 194-95 pleasure quarters, 81, 88-S9, 92, 93-94,175, 176; licensed, 89, 95, 98-100, i n . See also amusement centers police station, 166 pollution, environmental, 68,112 ponds: garden, 24, 25, 85; public park, 108, jop-10, IIO-II

porches, on buildings, 158 postmodernism, recent developments and, 59,171, 214, 217-20 post office buildings, us, 147,150,152, ¡S3, 184 prestige elements. See grand residences; public buildings prewar buildings, 213 profane space. See amusement centers; sacred spaces promenades, park, 175-76 prostitution districts. See pleasure quarters public buildings, 115; parks combined with, 198-206; with towers, 144-45, 147,1S4; traditional residential-style, 150,159-70. See also buildings; government buildings; schools public housing, 207-12 punishment, public, 78, 80 radial streets. See streets railroads, 9, 60; stations and plazas, 113, 188,196-98 reading a city: by land walks, 10-16,31-33, 50,56, 64-65, 218; high-city applications of, 10-16, 31-33,56, 64-65; lowcity applications of, 66-67; methods of, 7-10; waterways applications of, 66-68, 71 recreation areas, 215-16; along the avenues, 89-93; waterfront, 77. See also amusement centers; parks, public redevelopment. See city planning; development projects red-light districts. See pleasure quarters religious precincts. See sacred spaces; shrines; temples renaissance, downtown, 105 Renaissance, Italian, 8-9,102 renewal, urban. See development projects research: fieldwork in Tokyo, ix-x, 9-10, 219; recent changes and, 217, 219-20; Tokyo study groups doing, ix-x, xi-xii, 217 residential areas: class-based, 4, 9-10,16, 51-52; daimyd-establishment dominated, 22-39; distribution of, 16-/7; dual warrior-commoner structure of, 27-30, 61; gokenin warrior group, 4 8 60, S4i hatamoto warrior, 39-48; three types of modern, 35-36; of warriors, 39-60. See also apartment houses

INDEX retainers, shogunal. See shogunal retainer residences ridge roads: daimyd establishments along, 23-25. See also roadways rivers, 67, 76-77. See also waterside space; specificrivernames roadways: branch ridge roads, 13,24, 26-27; categories of, 13-14,24; gridpattem, 39,41; high-city, 12-14; interregional highways, 13; older, 13-14; ridge roads, 12-13, W, H , 23-25,24; ring roads, 13. See also avenues; streets Roman Empire cities, 102 room sizes. See floor plans Roppongi district, 59 row houses. See houses RySgokubashi Bridge, 90, 91 Ry6goku Hirokdji avenue amusement center, 90-92,91 sacred spaces, 82-83; "bad" places and, 98-100; Japanese compared to European, 86,135-36; topographical placement of, 15-16, 83-87. See also amusement centers; shrines; temples Sakai-machi, 96-97 samurai districts, high-city, 9-10,39,48. See also warrior class residences Sanbancho Dori, 41 Sanno Gongen (Hie) shrine, 86-87 Sano Toshikata, 207 Sarueura-cho district, 210 Saruwaka-cho theater district, 98,100 Sashigaya valley, 11 scale, urban sense of, 91,119-34, 202. See also sizes; space, urban scale maps. See maps, city schools, 164, 165,187,191 -92; vest-pocket parks and, 198-206,200,20s schoolyards and playgrounds, 191-92 Sendagi-Shinobazu valley, n Senju, 91 Sensoji temple, in Asakusa, 15,108 seven hills of Tokyo, 11 shadow city. See border areas, city Shiba upland, 13,15 Shibusawa Ei'ichi residence, 116,116,185 Shimizu Kisuke, 114 Shimosueyoshi slope, 11,12 Shinjuku, 24, 34, h i Shinka Park, 204-y Shinobazu Pond, 110-11

233

Shinsaibashi Suji, Osaka, 130 Shin-Tokiwabashi Bridge, 177,179 Shirokiya Dry Goods Store, 156-57, isS shogunal retainer residences: gokenin (house retainers), 48-60, S4; hatamoto (bannermen), 29, 39-48,44, 49; okachigutni (foot guards), 52-55; omakanaigumi (housekeepers), 55-56; osakitagumi (vanguards), 58-59 shogunal retainers, classes of, 48,58 shop fronts architecture, 36-39,172-73, 208, 209-10,212-13; workplace-andhome, 26,28, 61-62,161 Showa Dori thoroughfare, 82,184 shrines: amusement centers near, 83, 8789, 101; axial spatial pattern of, 167-68; landmarks along the water, 82-89, $3, 101, no, 177 signs and banners, 96, 97-98,121,124,12s; and billboard architecture, 172-73 siting, of buildings. See lots, city sizes: block and lot, 40-41,43,51-52,56; group residence lot, 49-52,56,58; hatamoto residence, 43-44,51; tatami mats room, 49,54,55. See also maps, city skyline of towers, 134-47 skyscrapers, 1 slums, 59 social centers. See amusement centers social life, apartment house, 206, 209-14 social nonattachment, principle of, 87-88, 90, 92, 98-99 social spaces. See parks, public; plazas, public "soft reconstruction," 39 Sone Tatsuzo, 156 soy sauce transportation, 77 space, ceremonial, 168. See also shrines; temples space, lot. See lots, city space, public. See plazas, public; public buildings space, urban: "bad" places and sacred, 98100; baroque design and, 108-9, 110 > 124,127-28,169,192-93,202,204; border area, 9, 87, 92, 98-100; centrifugalism of, 41-42, 99,138, 213-14; city skyline changes and, 134-47; coexistence of elements within, 33,143, 161-66; high-city logic of place, 16-19; high-city versus low-city, 28-29; inferiority of, 82,122-24,159; Japanese prin-

234

INDEX

space, urban (continued) ciples of, 27-28,119-30,138,147-48, 159,163,168-70,181, 214-15; landbased versus water-oriented, 147,174, 181,189,196-98; lineages of Japanese, ix, 162-63,171, 214-16; the logic of, 16-19; ludic, 91, 94-95,100; mobility of Japanese, 147-48,159; monumental European-style, 166,169; the mosaic of, 159,169; preserved structure in, 3133,144-45,160,163-65; private, 29-31, 124-30,144-45, 211; sacred or religious, 15-16, 82-83, 86-88, 98-100, 135-36; scale and, 119-34; for social nonattachment, 87-88, 90, 92,98-99; warrior versus commoner, 28-29, 161-62; waterside, 100-107,173-88. See also border areas, city; European cities spaces, axial. See axial spaces; symmetry Spanish Steps (Rome), 134 Spanish Village, 36,37, 38-39, 213 spatial anthropology, x, 8-9, 211, 218, 219-20; concept development, x-xi. See also research speculation, real estate, 218-19, 220 squares, public, 80,134,159; European versus Japanese, 78, 86, 90-91, 92,117,135, 141,147,155. See also plazas, public state planning. See city planning; government planning stations. See plazas, public; railroads steps and stairways, 42, $7,134,182,183,208; men's and women's, 83; park, 202-3 stores: department, 80,156-58; shop fronts and, 28,161,172-73,208, 209-10, 212-13; with towers, 1+5-41*, 156-ji, IS7 street-crossing plazas. See plazas, public street facades. See facades, street streets: "alleyization" of, 130; corner plazas of, 188-95; comer-lots and intersections of, 147-59; crossroads, 148-55, 159; diagonal, 149-50,192-93; elevated, 58, 67,179,188; facade orientation to, 28; foot traffic, 126, 131-34,132,133; neighborhoods on central, 42-43, 49, so; partitioned neighborhood, 121, 123-29; radial, 192; reorganizations of, 129-30,193,199; scale of, 119-34; underground neo-alley, 130-34. See also alleyways; avenues; roadways

structure, urban. See change, in Tokyo; space, urban studio apartments, 212-13 suburbs, 47, 60, 206 Sukiyabashi Bridge area, 118,187-ip, 188 Sumida River, 69, 85, 88, 90-92,91; bridges, 177,178; park, 175-7Í; waterside area, 100-107,111-12,118 Sumitoshi Apartments, 208,209-10 Suzaki district, 85-86, 99 Suzuki Kenji, 43 symmetry, 163; buildings with, 160; diagonal, 192-93, 201, 211 Symons, Arthur, 106 taboo quarters, 15 Taishó democracy modernist spirit, 6,173, 199 Takeshita Dóri, 132 Tamanoi, 99 Tameike Lake, 11-12 tatami mat room size, 49, S4,55 Tatsuno Kingo, 117,182 taxation: inheritance, 53; land, 149,150 teahouses, 86, 90, 93-97, 96, 98,100,103, 141,174, 213; rendezvous, 94, n o ; theater, 95-97 temples: approaches to, 14, 26, 83, 85, 167-68; declared modern areas, 93; distribution of, 89; Inari fox god, 124,126; relocation of to city outskirts, 15,26,87; topographical placement of, 15-16,8384,86-87,136; waterside landmarks, 82-89. See also amusement centers terminals, train, 113 theater districts, 87, 88-89,90; development of, 93-100,94,96,97; European, 95, 96; modern period, 111-12,187,188; movie theaters, 108-9, no; and playgoing, 100. See also amusement centers; shrines tide-viewing hills, 122,123, 138 Tokiwa Park, 193 -94 Tokugawa Ieyasu, 13 Tokyo: age of, 1-2,171-73; centrifugalism of, 41-42, 99,138, 213-14; construction of premodern, 138-39; historical overview of, 3-6; modern transformation into, 159-60,186-88; organization by lots, 19-22; reading, 7-10,10-16, 31-33, 64-65,159; revival of present-day, 207; as spatial mosaic, 159,169; street-

INDEX corner plazas, 188-95; water system, 126-27, 173-88. See also growth, city; space, urban Tokyo Chamber of Commerce Building,

US-S6

Tokyo highlands. See high-city Edo-Tokyo Tokyo maps. See city plans; maps, city Tokyo Medical School Building, 144,14s Tokyo no Machi Kenkyûkai. See Group for the Study of Tokyo and Its Neighborhoods Tokyo no machi oyomu, x Tokyo Securities Exchange, 185-86 Tomioka Hachiman Shrine, 85 topography, of Tokyo: high-city, 10-12, 24-27,42,52; low-city, 121-22; low-city within the high-city, 61-64. See also lots, city; nature and the city Toshi no runessansu, 8-9 towers. See buildings, with towers traffic patterns. See transportation traffic plazas. See plazas, public train lines, 174,188,196; as boundaries, 9; Yamanote, 9, 60 tram lines, 190 transportation: railroad, 9, 60,113,188, 196,196-97; street-crossing plazas and, 189-90,196-98; traffic patterns, 12627,128,131,132,147-48,149-50,168, 174,177; train, 9, 60,174,188,196; by water, 71, 72-77, 91-92,100,103,174, i77> W9- See also water system tree planting, 179,180, 184 Tsukudajima, 103,104 Tsumaki Yorinaka, 156,183 Twelve Stories tower (Ryôunkaku), 99, 108, log Ueda Bunzaburô, 38 Ueno Plaza, 196,197 Ueno uplands, 11,15, 87, n o - n underground streets, 130-34 underworld, urban. See border areas, city United States, 105; city age in, 1-2; Spanish colonial-style, 36,37, 38-39; urban parks, 198-99 University of Tokyo, 25-26,165 Unno Hiroshi, 172 uplands. See hills, of Tokyo urban planning. See city planning urban renewal. See apartment houses; development projects; parks, public

235

Ushigome highland, n Utagawa Hiroshige. See Hiroshige valleys, city: commoner districts within, 61-64; topography of, 11-12 vanguards. See shogunal retainer residences Venetsia—suijô no meikyû toshi, 220 Venice, 80,102,105-6,107, 220; walking observation of, 8-9. See also European cities vest-pocket parks. See parks, public views, city: aerial, 69,104,112,120; close-up and distant, 127; drawings, 69,123; European avenues and, 124,127; folding screen, 7 4 , 9 4 , i4>; importance of, 41, 56, 76-77,120-22,127,138; lithograph, 109; Nihonbashi River, 74; scale of, 120-22,127,141-42; from "tideviewing hills," 122,123, 138; woodblock print, 76,79,84, 90,91,96,120, 138,174. See also landmarks walls and fences, lot, 46-47,161; picket fences, 163,165. See also facades, street; gates warehouses: godown-style, 28,145-4**; revitalization of, 105; waterfront, 74-76, 7S, 103,104, 105, 174,184SS warrior class residences: areas for, 4, n, 14-15, 28-29,39-60,52-59; closed streets of, 49,56; daimyô establishments, 22-39; group residences, 4860, so, s i , S4; public buildings and, 16170. See also shogunal retainer residences Waters, Thomas James, 169 waterside space, 100-107; amusement centers, 89-93,174; contemporary development of, 174, 219; in modern times, 105,107-18; theater districts, 93-100; urban modernization and, 175-88,196; waterfronts and markets, 77, 78-82,79, 103-5. See also views, city; specific river names water system, 68-72,126-27; engineering projects, 70-72; importance of, x-xi; landmarks, 82-89,114; modern Tokyo, 173-88,186; reading the city by, 66-68, 71,77,186. See also bridges; canals; rivers Western elements: apartment houses with,

236

INDEX

Western elements (contents) 207-12; buildings with, 30-31,32-33, 45,4i, 108,109,110,114, ns, 116,14041,152-57,186; in early modern Tokyo, 159-70, 206, 207; influx of, 127,159; Japanese and, 5-6,38-39, 45,108-9, 114-16,141,150-59, 210, 211; and traditional residential style, 162-64, ¡64. See also architecture; European cities wood, the Japanese culture of, 9, 26,124, 128 Yamada Mamoru, 177 Yamanote, the high city, 11-12. See also high-city Edo-Tokyo Yamazaki Shöten Building, IS4

yards: fronting public buildings, 163-65; houses with, 48, «-55, 206; parks as common, 199; school, 191 -92, 204-6, 20s. See also gardens Yokokawa Tamisuke, 185-86 Yomiuri Shinbun Building, 156,157 Yoroibashi Bridge, 185-86 Yoshiwara-chô licensed quarter, 95, 98 Yoshiwara Ken'ichirô, 80 Yotsuya Araki-chô, HI Yotsuya-Kôjimachi valley, n Yushima Elementary School, 204-s Zenpukuji temple, 14 Zôjôji temple, in Shiba, 15, 87