都市の記憶と見えない都市

東京の都市風景を眺めていると、都市が記憶喪失に陥っているように感じることがあります。これは、関東大震災と東京大空襲による壊滅的被害と復興、そして高度経済成長期からバブル経済に沸いた1980年代後半までの開発ラッシュといった、東京を襲い続けた劇的な変化が一因です。

そして東京は現在も変化し続けていて、竣工後50年も経たずに解体される建物も珍しくありません。一方で私たちは建物が解体された土地に直面した時、かつてそこにあった建物を思い出せないようです。これは建物の滅失が忘却を加速するだけではなく、建物がそれほど意識的に見られていないことを示していると思います。

このことから、私は一般の人々と建築家との間で都市に向けられた視界に差異があるように感じ、その差異の可視化を試みました。こうして現れた見えない都市は都市が本来抱えていた複雑さと矛盾を浮き彫りにし、都市の記憶を再構築するような気がしてなりません。

2016年6月

The memory of cities and invisible cities

Looking at cityscape in Tokyo, I often feel like the city have fallen into memory loss. This feeling has been caused by the following drastic changes; the catastrophic damage by the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923) and the Great Tokyo Air Raid (1945), the reconstructions from them, and too much sudden urban development which had been implemented from the postwar high economic growth period until the latter half of the 1980’s when Japan enjoyed the bubble economy.

And Tokyo still continues changing presently, buildings to be demolished within 50 years after the completion are not rare. On the other hand, facing a vacant lot after buildings were dismantled, we seem not to be able to remember the buildings which there used to be. I think that this indicates not only that the buildings fall into oblivion after their demolition but also that we have not watched them so consciously in the city.

With this idea as momentum, I feel like there is a difference between the common passerby and architects in terms of fields of view for the city, and try to visualize it. I think that invisible cities to be created in this ways will highlight the complexity and the contradiction which the city would originally have and reconstruct the memory of the city.
June 2016