'21st Century Tokyo': Architecture as performance
Kenzo Tange's Tokyo City Hall in Shinjuku stands tall and wide as a symbol of their power.Compared to world capitals like London, Paris and Rome, Tokyo is home to few historical buildings or even early modern treasures from the first half of the 20th century. What it lacks in classic structures, however, it makes up for in the globe's most fanciful and impressive works of contemporary architecture.
The new book "21st Century Tokyo" is the ultimate guide to the best of Tokyo's buildings erected after 1990. Thanks to stunning, noirish photographs from Joshua Lieberman, Tokyo's glass, steel and concrete structures have never looked so good. Essays from practicing architect Julian Worrall and architectural scholar Erez Golani Solomon give the back story and significance of each structure.
We talked with the book's authors Worrall and Golani to learn more about Tokyo's distinct architectural themes and the future of the city in a low-growth era.
CNNGo: The book only features buildings built after 1990. Why do you think that year is a good cut-off point?
Julian Worrall: I think this is a useful point for a number of reasons. It coincides with the end of the Bubble and the beginning of a new low-growth paradigm in the Japanese economy -- the so-called "post-bubble" era in Japan (something with a lot of relevance for other parts of the developed world these days).
Erez Golani Solomon: There has also been a lot of literature in recent years discussing the implications of the 'turn of the century.' So it was also building around that special moment of 10 years before the turn and 10 years after.
Worrall: And 1990 coincides with a general shift in architectural thinking away from postmodernism, towards a re-evaluation of and different exploration of modernist ideas. And finally the past 20 years have been about globalisation in terms of capital. And that has had a big impact on the city.
