Urban Survey and Planning in Twentieth-Century Japan

Abstract

Since the nineteenth century, the survey of people’s way of life were the basic method to study big cities. Even though the surveys were motivated by social awareness, the result was mainly analyzed by scientific, political and economical interests, and often was devided from the cultural and psychological research of urban phenomena. However, as it is obvious that these are closely integrated, the method and idea of the urban survey reflect the bilateral relationship between perceiving and conceiving urban space. This study will explain how urban surveys transformed and reflected the ideas and interests in urban space and its study in Japan from the end of the nineteenth century to the 1980s. Especially in examining a research named “Modernology” by a Japanese architect Wajiro Kon from 1925 to 1930, and the works of later Japanese architects inspiered by “Modernology” after 1960s, this study will explain how they tried to create urban studies with cultural identity by conducting surveys and integrating with international theories. “Modernology”described the emerging urban space and people’s way of life in Tokyo, and was often recognized as a method of popular culture. However, Modernology represented critical aspects of social space and encouraged people to be more engaged with it. While modernist architects distanced from urban realities to solve its problems scientifically, Modernology was often recognized as their counter part. When we recognize its primal objectives and influence on later generation in seeking the social ethos in the dialectical progress with the bilateral approaches between surveying and planning, we can understand the alternative aspect of Japanese urban studies.