A Study of the Landscape of Tôkyô (I. Physiognomy; II. Streets)

Abstract

I According to Profs. Geisler, and Müller, Dr. Weber, and others, the ‘Physiognomie’ or ‘Landschaftsbild’ of a city consists of the following ele-ments. (1) ‘Grundriss’, (2) ‘Aufriss’, (3) population, (4) commerce, (5) communication, (6) history, (7) topography. The physiognomy of a city may be considered from two angles, the first is explanation from data of a number of phenomema, the second being the study of a city from investigations of its physiognomy; in other words, the ‘Physiognomische Methode’ of Dr. Weber, and the ‘From Form to Function’ of Prof. Jones. In the explanation, Prof. Geisler's ‘moglichste allseitig’ obser-vation is necessary, for which there are two ways, the one of systematic description in explaining landscape, the other in the voluntary selection of view points to make the explanation vivid. A good treatise on the subject will also be found to be serviceable. II The landscape of Tôkyô to-day is characterized by the single word ‘confusion’, namely, a partial Europianization of the private life of the citizens, which is merely a stage in the eventual higher degree of assimilation of European culture by Japanese, my descriptions being memories of the pro-gress of Tôkyô. The streets are the face of a city on which the most active and characte-ristic phenomena occur. Those referred to in this paper being commercial streets, include the following topics: 1 The developement of the present various types of commercial streets from the markets of old Japan; (a) street shops, (b) street stalls (‘Roten’ or ‘yomise’ in Japanese), (c) department stores, (d) street in a building, (e) markets, public, and private, retail and wholesale, (f) others. 2 The relations between commercial streets and purely transportational streets are very intimate, but when the former is only for walking, or when a new broad way is constructed to relieve the excess traffic, the relationship ceases, for instance the Ginza and Syôwa street, although not an ideal exam-ple. The relation to topography is also dealt with (fig. 3, 4). 3 Definition of shopping streets by the number of shops or the total length of shop fronts (figs. 5, 6). 4 Uniformity of a street. The functional arrangement along streets are measured. (1) percentage: K=one function, L=other functions (industrial, commercial, and communications, public, refreshmental, residential, unused) Sign 0 K=100 (sum of front) 1 100>K_??_90 2 K>50 K_??_L/2 (2) Arrangement: The numbers of groups performing the same function are counted, but as a better method, the superior one is compared with the others, and according to the unit length of street now discussed, from i to 4 groups are selected. (3) Combination of percentage and arrangement oI absolutely Mono-landschaft 12, 13, 14, Mono-landschaft α, β, γ 22, 23, 24, vice Mono-lan dschat α, β, γ 5 Street rhythms. There are many rhythms in a street; the kinetic, caused by communications and the static, being the arrangement of houses, etc., also the historical and present. Showwindows and showvcases, as indi-cators of the development of shopping, are summarized by percentages for every 20 shops and houses along Yotuya and Hongo, radial main streets in Yamate (the upland or residential) district. The housefloors and house-types are also described (figs. 9, 10, 11). 6 The meshing of streets. The cause of the meshing of streets is the intersection of more than 2 roads, but since trade does not always develop on all parts of a street, the result is rhythm, meshing, and discontinuous city growth. The distribution of bank offices (fig. 12) indicates the mesh of commercial functions.