Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City
by Jorge Almazan
A fascinating discussion of features that make Tokyo a unique and livable city. The discussion of yokochō alleyways is particularly interesting. These narrow streets of tiny two-story bars and restaurants grew from a postwar effort to shut down the black market traffic that centered on Tokyo rail stations. Black-market vendors were removed from their haunts and sent off to new-built market stalls, and these grew into entertainment districts that people like and that show up all the time in movies. This is very on-trend: there’s maybe space for five customers at a time, but rents are low and you can cater to very specialized interests. If you squint, you can see the germ of Robuchon’s atelier and David Chang’s noodle bar.
I’m interested because a small group of us are reviving an old idea of the imaginary city as a view of a hypertext.
Photo: Lan Pham