Japanese city

is a place where everything from signs (and) vending machines ...to infrastructures' participate equally with buildings in the imagery of urban Japan. Together, these characteristics result in an amorphous and more collage-like surface in Japan 'that favours fluctuations, fluidity and lightness.

But of all of the Japanese writers (certainly of those who are accessible in English), it is the distinguished architect, Fumihiko Maki who extends these contrasts in the most poetic manner and, by implication at least, brings them closest to contemporary scientific and philosophical thinking. He again notes the absence of a 'clear relationship of center and periphery' in the Japanese city. He also suggests that there is no clear relationship between figure and ground (i.e. between built form and exterior space) in contrast to Western clarity. Further, he observes how ' everything from signs (and) vending machines ...to infrastructures' participate equally with buildings in the imagery of urban Japan. Together, these characteristics result in an amorphous and more collage-like surface in Japan 'that favours fluctuations, fluidity and lightness' (Maki, 1988, p. 8). This presents each building with a higher degree of autonomy than in the West where city form is visually more coherent, with relationships of centre to periphery, figure to ground, building to sign, etc. showing themselves with greater hierarchy and clarity.

japanese city, n.All

japanese city