論文

his essay discusses some trends in (re)production of local urban quality within the frameworks of relentless globalisation. The focus will be on Japan and some peculiarities of Japanese (urban) culture exemplified by Kuhonbutsugawa Ryokudô, only one of many streets in Jiyūgaoka, a small precinct of Tokyo, the largest city in the world. The essay builds upon parts of Measuring the non-Measurable – Mn’M, the major research project conducted at Keio University in the period 2011-14. The task was to recognise, capture, analyse and open to discussion a set of evident existing and emergent qualities of that area and to locate them within broader cultural contexts and trends. The original emphasis was on elements and gestures that have the capacity to make cities and urban life great, on various manifestations of everyday life and dialectics between the Japanese taste for modernity and the spectacular (as “Global”), and strong undercurrents of local culture. Central to the project were spaces, relationships and interactions which mediate between (or which, indeed, are the in-between) of the built-up and open, the sold and void, public and private (or, various Japanese variations on those themes).

In 2011, at Keio University, Tokyo, we launched Measuring the non-Measurable, with academic and practitioners involved in production of space in ten cities of Asia (Tokyo, Bangkok, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore), Australia (Melbourne) and Europe (Barcelona, Belgrade, Copenhagen, Florence). The intention of Mn’M was never to question the importance of quantifiable dimensions of life. One of its critical aims was to argue for an equally respectful treatment of other dimensions of knowing, as neither the quantifiable not the non-quantifiable alone can fully cover the key dimensions of the synthetic quality which we seek to live. The cities are always in and of a particular place, in and of a particular time. That double contextualisation makes their realities enormously dynamic and complex. The complexity itself and the groundedness in concrete, unique situations are the key aspects of being urban.