Urban Complexity: The dynamics of urban public space in an everyday perspective
A inter-disciplinary study of the City in East-Asia: case Japan
(Stadt und Komplexität: Die Dynamik des urbanen Raumes aus der Sicht des Alltäglichen
Eine interdisziplinäre Betrachtung der Stadt in Ostasien: Beispiel Japan)
Work in Progress
Abstract
The city is the built expression of our cultural values and is seen as a complex patterning of activity. Urban space is a dynamic, rapidly alterable milieu of people, information, and composition, indispensable related to time. Furthermore, the city is used by people: everyday routines, urban rituals, sociospatial movements and pattern of relations and interaction give meaning to the city. We make the city by living (in) the city. But in the 21st century, architectural and urban spaces are becoming more and more homogeneous and lose local, historical and cultural meanings. Globally influenced, cities in East-Asia which urban form is historically proposed by local culture are the recipients of Western concepts of built environment. The local cultural interpretation of space, and the imported ideas of the spatial arrangement interact and produce individual urban mosaics and patterns. How we have to deal with this dynamic urban space in the ‘age of the chaos and complexity theory’? The aim of the interdisciplinary research is to investigate how microscopic processes of everyday urban life, and especially the human being, affect the dynamics of urban space, and in particular, shape the built form of the city in East-Asia, especially in Japan. Furthermore, the research will take the view that issues of urban planning and urban morphology cannot be separated from the microscopic processes of daily life in the city (as it happens in Western oriented design concepts which dominate current urban development). The city in East-Asia and especially the Japanese city may have different (maybe almost opposite) pattern and forms to those of the West, different from what we might have imagined. However, the lesson on the city in East-Asia is not inevitably random. For example, considering the fact that ‘space’ or ‘place’ in the Japanese sense is an area defined by particular human activities. Several authors from different backgrounds (e.g. Yoshiro Ashihara, Peter Popham, Roman Cybriwsky, Gunther Nitschke, Barnie Shelton etc.) tried to capture these urban phenomena and point out that there is a need for further investigation into the agenda bias of cross-cultural discourse to bridge the existing gap between (social) urban research theories in East and West. Accordingly, the contrasting East-Asian experiences should offer us further insights into our own (Western) urban conditions and how the contemporary city is lived and shaped by the cultural processes of everyday urban life.
(Stadt und Komplexität: Die Dynamik des urbanen Raumes aus der Sicht des Alltäglichen
Eine interdisziplinäre Betrachtung der Stadt in Ostasien: Beispiel Japan)
Work in Progress
Abstract
The city is the built expression of our cultural values and is seen as a complex patterning of activity. Urban space is a dynamic, rapidly alterable milieu of people, information, and composition, indispensable related to time. Furthermore, the city is used by people: everyday routines, urban rituals, sociospatial movements and pattern of relations and interaction give meaning to the city. We make the city by living (in) the city. But in the 21st century, architectural and urban spaces are becoming more and more homogeneous and lose local, historical and cultural meanings. Globally influenced, cities in East-Asia which urban form is historically proposed by local culture are the recipients of Western concepts of built environment. The local cultural interpretation of space, and the imported ideas of the spatial arrangement interact and produce individual urban mosaics and patterns. How we have to deal with this dynamic urban space in the ‘age of the chaos and complexity theory’? The aim of the interdisciplinary research is to investigate how microscopic processes of everyday urban life, and especially the human being, affect the dynamics of urban space, and in particular, shape the built form of the city in East-Asia, especially in Japan. Furthermore, the research will take the view that issues of urban planning and urban morphology cannot be separated from the microscopic processes of daily life in the city (as it happens in Western oriented design concepts which dominate current urban development). The city in East-Asia and especially the Japanese city may have different (maybe almost opposite) pattern and forms to those of the West, different from what we might have imagined. However, the lesson on the city in East-Asia is not inevitably random. For example, considering the fact that ‘space’ or ‘place’ in the Japanese sense is an area defined by particular human activities. Several authors from different backgrounds (e.g. Yoshiro Ashihara, Peter Popham, Roman Cybriwsky, Gunther Nitschke, Barnie Shelton etc.) tried to capture these urban phenomena and point out that there is a need for further investigation into the agenda bias of cross-cultural discourse to bridge the existing gap between (social) urban research theories in East and West. Accordingly, the contrasting East-Asian experiences should offer us further insights into our own (Western) urban conditions and how the contemporary city is lived and shaped by the cultural processes of everyday urban life.
Heide Jäger - 18. Oct, 22:28
