DESIGNWORKS Vol.14

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now they are considered to be public parks. In Tokyo, by contrast, the gardens have been handed down as private assets. For example, all of the five-star hotels in Tokyo have gardens. The greenery on the grounds of the French Embassy is also a garden-like place. In this sense, Tokyo in its early years in the Edo Period was like a rural city. In his book entitled "The Modern Landscape of Tokyo," the architecture critic Noboru Kawazoe*5 writes that the areas in northwest Tokyo such as Sugamo, Hakusan and Somei were originally flower gardens. The Tokyo that we now think of as a concrete jungle presented a completely different image at that time. Foreigners come to Tokyo to see the modern architecture of Harajuku and Omotesando, but I tell them that it would be even more interesting if they saw Tokyo from its urban context. "Figure and ground" is a key concept in map design, but it's the ground that's important. You can change the figure, but it's no easy task to make the ground interesting. In his book "Earth Diver," Shinichi Nakazawa*6 analyzes an area that has existed since the Jomon Period. There is a wealth of information buried beneath the city of Tokyo. It's a hidden dimension where layer upon layer of history lies buried. So it has a profoundly mysterious presence. I think that when you explain Tokyo to people, you should try to get them to appreciate this overall structure. And in actuality foreigners find this kind of explanation really interesting.Skyscrapers and Cities: The Need for a New Urban AxisInterviewer: Up to now, the discussion has centered on deciphering delicate contexts, but in the modern age I think skyscrapers represent a clear break with that context. On the contrary, when you look at the cluster of buildings in the waterfront district, while you recognize that they're buildings, they're starting to form a type of topography. It seems like bidirectional lines of sight are being created in which you can look at the topography from the tops of those buildings, and you can also look at those buildings from the middle of the existing topography. It seems like a duality between the micro-topography of Tokyo and the skyscrapers is being created as a new context.Jinnai: This is a domain that needs to be opened up for study. When this many skyscrapers start to appear, you have to consider the issue of how they're going to look from street level. In Japan, the only guidelines are the ratio of the building volume to the lot and the building-to-land ratio, and there aren't any height restrictions, so the areas in which skyscrapers are built are determined by market principles. Some people say that interesting cities will result even if you just leave it up to market, but I think that you should have careful guidelines in order to take full advantage of the special characteristics of each location. For example, as in the case of the Bun-eido Building in Kagurazaka, whose design was based on the ordinances in Shinjuku Ward, I think there should be guidance to encourage the creation of projects that have cultural value. In the places where high-rise buildings are likely to be constructed, I think an atmosphere in which specialists, companies, and private citizens can discuss proposed projects is also needed. For example, if nothing is done, the area around Tokyo Sky Tree will also become a high-rise apartment building district. And that will eliminate the appeal of that building as a stand-alone high-rise. I think that when the economy is lousy and there's a lull in building activity, it's a good time to think about the grand design.Interviewer: Once, skyscrapers were stand-alone structures. That time has passed, and since they've begun to be built in clusters, we may have become able at last to verify the rules for creating the best possible landscapes that can be produced with skyscrapers. As an island unit, Manhattan was able to become the landscape of the 20th century when high-rise buildings came to be built there. But that's not how Tokyo was created. Isn't that so?Jinnai: New York had a clear grid vector and firm axis lines, so it's an overwhelmingly powerful cityscape. It's used over and over again in images. A landscape with a unique identity has been formed, and a living environment has been created that people enjoy in their daily lives. They share a connection. In Japan, I think people still want to keep the scenery to themselves and enjoy it that way.Interviewer: Restrictions are imposed on skyscrapers in New York so they're divided into several levels and set back from the street. It's now very popular to conduct greening of places 30 or 40 meters above ground level, and reportedly this has attracted butterflies and they've formed networks. I wonder if a cultural landscape formed by increasing the height of the city and clustering the buildings hasn't come to exist in manmade structures as well.Jinnai: I think vibrant activity at ground level is also important. I think most of the buildings up to now have failed to provide enough appeal at ground level. When the scale gets too big, they tend to only bring things inside the building, like a shopping mall, and that makes the area around the building uninteresting. I feel certain that there must be a way for them to do more to make the surrounding area livelier.Interviewer: In other words, architecture dies if the buildings become too densely packed and isolated from the surrounding area. In that sense, the approach to the street level of Roppongi Hills seems to be a success in some ways. It's the result of an effort to persuade individual landowners so as not to alienate the local community. It also seems like they were trying to stimulate the neighboring area of Azabu Juban.Jinnai: I understand that Richard Bender*7 of Berkeley supervised the design of the row of zelkova trees at Roppongi Hills. I think that ultimately in the context of the city they flow in nicely. That area has the richness of an irregular topography and irregular zoning, so you find a lot of unexpected things when you wander around it. Minato Ward has a lot of those kinds of places, doesn't it? I think that's one of the real merits of Minato Ward. I don't think it diminishes the quality of Tokyo's uptown area. Interviewer: There's also the problem of what appearance to give the peripheral areas. In New York, there's an awareness that the façade of the buildings that face large public zones like Central Park have a vitally important message.Jinnai: That's because in Japan we build skyscrapers and don't give consideration to anything but what the view is like from that skyscraper. Once rivers and moats were used skillfully as spatial axes that extend over a wide area. There are photo albums that capture the appearance of Tokyo after reconstruction in the early Showa period. It's a really interesting urban landscape: groups of modern buildings along the rivers. The same was true of Osaka. But you don't often see examples of that kind of urban landscape along streets or parks. I think that we could make our cities much more interesting if we increased the number of dependable axes and then, rather than just initiating some kind of action at individual sites, used the power of both the public sector and the private sector. Even if you just take the example of the area along the Sumida River, there are too few buildings that produce interesting action. Because of the impact of Tokyo Sky Tree, there's a lot of interest right now in the rivers in the interior regions of Koto Ward and Sumida Ward. These are areas that suffered a great deal of damage due to earthquakes and the war, and they are being converted from factory use to apartment use. But none of the buildings they're putting up really need to be built on the waterfront, and there's almost none that could be praised from an architectural standpoint. To make the waterfront attractive, we've got to employ the strategic power of architecture. For example, since ancient times and the Middle Ages, the city of Hakata that's being featured in this issue was a port city that connected Japan with the Asian mainland, and it *1 Subsidiary temple: A branch temple built on the grounds of a large temple.*2 Intangible, immaterial.*3 Rakusuiso (Falling water): A villa built directly over a waterfall, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1937.*4 Andrea Palladio: Renaissance architect.*5 Noboru Kawazoe: Architecture critic.*6 Shinichi Nakazawa: Thinker, religious scholar and anthropologist.*7 Richard Bender: Urban architect and Professor Emeritus of the University of California at Berkeley.Hidenobu Jinnai / Architectural historian1973Graduated Venice School of Architecture, ItalyUNESCO International Centre for the Study of Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) (until 1976)Teaching assistant, University of Tokyo and part-time instructor, Hosei UniversityFormed Tokyo no Machi Kenkyukai1981Entered Department of Engineering Research, School of Graduate Studies, University of Tokyo (major: architectural history)Received Ph.D1982Assistant Professor, Department of Engineering, Hosei University1990Professor, Department of Engineering, Hosei University2007Professor of Architecture, Department of Design Engineering (new department), Hosei Universityhad an urban space with a long waterfront line. There should be great potential for the creation of an attractive waterfront environment there.Interviewer: Lastly, is there anything you'd like to say to the Takenaka Corporation Design Department?Jinnai: I guide a lot of people from overseas around Tokyo, and there's a great deal of interest in the modern architecture of Tokyo right now. However, more and more I think there's a need for structures that are interesting even just in terms of the context of Tokyo. I'd like people to see Tokyo not just from the standpoint of individual works but in terms of the richness of the overall aim and program. It might be a difficult way to explain it, but I'd like the people who design modern buildings in Tokyo to deepen their awareness and design the buildings that can stand up to that deeper awareness to send a message to young people and students. Large buildings can only be built by a powerful organization. But it's for that reason that projects to utilize the assets passed down from the Edo Period come into being. I'd like to see architecture that increases the appeal of Tokyo become widely known to people in other countries.Interviewer: Thank you very much.(Interviewers: Taro Yonemasa, Tomoko Okada, Kaori Saito, Yuichi Matsuura, Tetsushi Nakadate, and Koichiro Yoshimoto)Interview