The Interactive Urban Landscape of Japan
Akira Suzuki

'It is difficult to describe Tokyo in terms of traditional urbanism. Its population is extremely fluid and capricious. It has no tradition of architectural culture, its infrastructure is quite haphazard, and its local communities - recently even the family unit - have begun to disintegrate.'

The impact on Japanese cities of social and technological change is the focus of this collection of essays by Akira Suzuki, editor of Telescope magazine and Professor of Design at Kobe University. Entertaining, but equally thought-provoking, the essays describe urban rituals and catastrophes, and suggest lessons that might be learnt from them. Progressing in scale from the minimal dwelling space for the single urbanite to the dispersed urban infrastructure, they put forward a new conception of urbanism that takes account of the changes in information technology that have begun to render national boundaries meaningless.