City and War: Foreign Influences, the Pacific War, and the Japanese City between 1937 and 1945

In 1942, Ishikawa Hideaki published a book entitled 'War and the City' ('Sensoo to Toshi') in which he examined foreign planning concepts and laid out the basics for a master plan for the Imperial Capital Tokyo. In the book, Ishikawa refers to numerous foreign examples, including notably German planners such as Paul Wolf and Walter Christaller. This publication provided a detailed approach on the theme of planning for defense, and built on earlier works by Ishikawa and notably his 1941 textbook on urban and regional planning in which he had already proposed his own regional planning ideas. Ishikawa's proposal for Tokyo divided the city into multiple small units and strongly influenced Ishikawa's postwar reconstruction plan. Ishikawa's career with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government spans the war and postwar period from 1933 to 1955. His work in Tokyo and in the colonies, in conjunction with that of other prominent planners and architects of the time, provides room for a two-pronged analysis of war and the Japanese city. In a first part, the paper therefore analyzes urban design for colonial areas, where military structures facilitated the application of Japanese planning concepts. For Japanese planners the colonies were an important study ground of foreign planning concepts (German, Russian, etc.) as well as an opportunity to develop and try out their own design concepts. Among the examples to be discussed are Ishikawa's experiences in Shanghai, Tange Kenzo's proposal for the Japanese Cultural Center in Bangkok (1942) and his 1942 entry in the Greater East Asia competition, as well as the urban project for Datong by a group of planners including Uchida Shozo and Takayama Eika for Datong. In a second part, the paper examines instances in which the war context facilitated planning in Japan, As the government and notably the military prepared the Japanese mainland for a possible future defense, their support allowed planners to realize proposals for decentralization planners had discussed for several years, but that had not found support. The construction of decentralized military towns such as Sagamihara Military City in 1940, or the decision on the construction of a green belt in 1939 are evidence of the urban transformation that took place during the war years. In conclusion, the paper argues that Japanese architecture and planning between 1937 and 1945 were characterized by a conscious borrowing of foreign urban planning and design ideas both in order to demonstrate Japanese architectural and urban design skills in the colonies and in order to transform and defend the urban spaces on the Japanese islands. War and defense preparation led to an acceleration of urban development that is visible both in planning examples in the colonies as well as in Japan.Conference co-organized by the Institute of Fine Arts; Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal; and Princeton University's School of Architecture

Shaping Tokyo: Land Development and Planning Practice in the Early Modern Japanese Metropolis

From the mid-nineteenth century, Japanese elites experimented with foreign planning concepts and transformed their cities to respond to the demands of modernization. Even though they faced similar situations, knew about established European techniques, and had large open spaces available, they established planning practices that were different from those of their foreign counterparts, building on the country’s own urban history and form, particularities in landownership, development needs, urban planning techniques, and design preferences. This article highlights, first, key issues of landownership, urban form, and urban development in the Edo period (1603—1867) and provides an overview of the urban transformation of Tokyo concentrating on the era from the early Meiji period (1860s) to the reconstruction after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. It then examines the elements set up in the overview more closely through the study of three areas of Tokyo between the 1860s and the 1920s. The article highlights the elite’s pragmatic approach to urban transformation and underlines the importance of land readjustment, a planning technique characterized by a reduction in lot sizes to create public land and to widen and straighten out streets, plots, and blocks. Examined are the transformation of the Ginza townsmen district (with a close look at the Yamashita-chô area), the government-led construction to the east of the palace (notably the Marunouchi area) starting in the 1880s, and the Kanda Misaki-chô area, a smaller daimyo district that had been cleared of all construction. In conclusion, this article argues that Japanese planners developed a practice that departed from European and American design principles but one that was and continues to be appropriate for Japanese needs and one that might even offer lessons to foreign cities and planners

Spaces of Identity in East European Cities

Review of Czaplicka, John; Gelazis, Nida; Ruble, Blair A., eds. (2009). Cities After the Fall of Communism: Reshaping Cultural Landscapes and European Identity. Washington, DC, Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, 368 pp., illustrations, maps, notes, index, $65 hardcover; Makaš, Emily Gunzburger; Conley, Tanja Damljanović, eds. (2009). Capital Cities in the Aftermath of Empires: Planning in Central and Southeastern Europe. London, New York: Routledge, 286 pp., illustrations, bibliography, notes, index,$120 hardcover; Stanilov, Kiril, ed. (2007). The Post-Socialist City: Urban Form and Space Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe after Socialism. Dordrecht: Springer, 490 pp., illustrations, maps, tables, notes, $239 hardcover; Urban, Florian (2009). Neo-historical East Berlin: Architecture and Urban Design in the German Democratic Republic 1970-1990. Farnham: Ashgate, 283 pp., illustrations, maps, tables, bibliography, notes, index,$124.95 hardcover

HISTORY URBANISM RESILIENCE VOLUME 03:

The 17th conference (2016, Delft) of the International Planning History Society (IPHS) and its proceedings place presentations from different continents and on varied topics side by side, providing insight into state-of-the art research in the field of planning history and offering a glimpse of new approaches, themes, papers and books to come. VOLUME 03: Change and Responsive Plannin

HISTORY URBANISM RESILIENCE VOLUME 07:

The 17th conference (2016, Delft) of the International Planning History Society (IPHS) and its proceedings place presentations from different continents and on varied topics side by side, providing insight into state-of-the art research in the field of planning history and offering a glimpse of new approaches, themes, papers and books to come. VOLUME 07: Planning Theories, Pedagogies and Practice

HISTORY URBANISM RESILIENCE VOLUME 01:

The 17th conference (2016, Delft) of the International Planning History Society (IPHS) and its proceedings place presentations from different continents and on varied topics side by side, providing insight into state-of-the art research in the field of planning history and offering a glimpse of new approaches, themes, papers and books to come. VOLUME 01: Ideas on the Move and Modernisatio

European Spatial Development, the Polycentric EU Capital, and Eastern Enlargement

Over five decades a new decentralized model for the European capital city has emerged through the distribution of European Union (EU) institutions and agencies, but as the result of national compromise and competition rather than the implementation of a vision of Europe. More than a purely administrative issue, the location of EU headquarters opens questions on the nature of European spatiality, the relation between politics and space and the role of headquarters cities in that space. To date, the decentralized unplanned structure has brought economic and symbolic benefits to the host cities and nations, but has also caused—notably in Brussels—the destruction of neighbourhoods and increased socio-economic disparities. This article argues that, given the particular history and structure of the EU and the Eastern enlargement of 2004, a deliberate polycentric headquarters policy is necessary: to balance competition and collaboration among host cities, to tie the political EU capitals into larger economic network of cities, and to align it with polycentricity stipulated by the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP). Such a policy would contribute to the emergence of a postnational European space, promote European identity and synergy, and facilitate the integration of cities and citizens in Eastern Europe into the EU