"FUTURE VISION OF KYOTO FOR the 21st CENTURY"
[Creating a Special KYOTO DISTRICT]
The Special Kyoto District-A flexible,supra-legal administrative zone
Saving Kyoto Is Saving Japan
The overall Japanese social structure distorts the urban structure of Kyoto.
Our special Kyoto District is a new, forward-looking way reform the city.
Instead of merely attempting to preserve the ancient capital
as a culturaldecoration, it strives to change our way of thinking so as to enable
Kyoto to function positively as a modern city accomodating a contemporary way
of life. We feel it is necessary to create the Kyoto District in order to break
with the system of urban administration uniformly imoposed all over the country.
We believe it may be possible to save Kyoto by making it a supra-legal,
flexible administrative district.
What images does the name Kyoto awaken in your mind?
Is the real city, as it exists now different from the ideas people have about it?
Why is it different? Or why has it just changed? What should we do about it?
This report attempts to elucidate a method for creating a Kyoto
that is beautiful because it is whole.
We have no need of flowery phrases in praise of radiant future.
Our task is not to come up with a dreamlike city plan
but to create awhole city that, with a full stock of city scenes,
both cherishes popular images and takes its place as a global communal property.
The historical heritage and the modern can coexist and function together in cities.
It is done outside Japan and can be done in Kyoto too.
First we must turn our attention to the systems and mechanisms
under which we create. By producing a special district
in which structural lapses have been rectified we can revive Kyoto
to serve as a model for the Japan of the future.
[Defining the Problem]
Differrent Interpretaitions
There is a subtle differrence between the way we Japanese regard the idea of
coexistence between the modern city and the historical heritage and the way
the issue is regarded by people in other countries.
We in Japan seem to have moved forward blindly without ascertaining
what must change and what must be our historical urban stock.
Instead of bringing about purposeful reform we have simply let matters
follow their own course.The same thing is occurring right now, at this instant.
The approach is not a global one but would appear to be distinctive to Japan.
To correct it, instead of responding to circumstances with the same old measures,
we must decide how we want Kyoto to be. We must re-create it on the basis
of our own intentions.
[Kyoto of Images; Kyoto of Reality]
Kyoto differs from our images of it because we have left in place a system that
conduces to unprincipled building.
A Matter of Structure
Lots of buildings are being built in Kyoto today, but exactly what are they?
Erected without a clear consensus of what they are for, they destroy the beauty
of the city. By beauty, I do not mean mere prettiness but totality.
Obviously new things are not necessarily bad. But we must take a cautious
approach toward novel visible, physical things. Architecture is not the only
problem Kyoto faces. Still, since it is impossible to discuss the city's other problems
without reference to urban structures and scenes, architecture must play a big part.
At this point, I shoud like to examine the structure governing the people
who do the making and building.
Basically, architecture is either private or public. The Japanese system
for dealing with public building fails to reflect residents' wishes.
Few people are even aware that designers for public projects are often selected
according to a competitive design-costs bidding system. The designer submitting
the lowest estimate is chosen even before the selectors know the quality of work
he is capable of. Surely this is odd.
It is extremely rare for civic debate to be held concerning the architectural program
of public projects, large or small. Keeping the populace in the dark about the purpose,
nature, and responsibility allocations of public architectural projects is scarcely
consonant with the modern democratic state. Yet such is the way
these things are done in Japan. This system too is certainly odd.
To change these systems and to create the kind of good architecture Kyoto
intrinsically deserves, it is essential to maintain high-level relations
among the client (the party at whose instigation the building is built), the designer,
and the construction companies.
If we admit that such is the case, we must accomplish the following.
1) Change the structure whereby building is considered compulsory.
2) Reexamine the architect-qualification system.
3) Legalize separation between designers and contractors.
4) Consider compensating clients and owners for contributing to the maintenance of good buildings
and a good urban environment.
Protecting The Cultural Heritage-Reducing The Hardship Imposed
On The People Of Kyoto
Of course it is extremely important to avoid the same old policies of coping with situations
and to draw up long-term perspectives. But it seems that the people in charge now are still relying
too much on vast projects and extraordinary events.
Our Kyoto District proposal envisages changing this system for creating things
and advances the essential totality of Kyoto as means for new construction.
In urban planning, removing things is creative in its own way.
Creating a city takes more than the production of hard elements (Architecture).
Getting rid of some things is actually a way to create the town as it shoud be.
Imagine the benefit to be derived from removing all signboards,electric cables,
and telephone poles. In other parts of the world, great histrical and cultural cities
are free of overhead electrical cables and telegraph poles,
and signboards are restricted to certain zones as a matter of course.
Kyoto the lazy
In places like Paris, Rome, Florence, and London, the visible histrical urban-scape is preserved
as unaltered as possible. Nonetheless, these cities function splendidly as modern urban centers.
If this possible else where, why is it impossible in Japan?
Our Kyoto District proposal deals with this problem, not by merely conserving the appearance
of the town structurally, but by removing unsightly elements and allowing the architect to propose
as much true wisdom as he can for the sake of reviving the city.
But for the Kyoto District to establish the idea that the Kyoto city scene is not only local property,
but also the spiritual property of all humanity, the following steps are essential.
1) As compensation for whatever inconveniences they may encounter,
the nation should offer Kyoto-ites assistance and lighten their tax burden.
(For example, reductions could be made in inheritance taxes, fixed-property taxes,
taxes on donations to relatives of land and buildings, city-planning taxes, and city taxes.)
2) A system of support should be set up to cover repairs and maintenance of cultural properties
that have not been officially designated as important. In addition to money,
such support should extend to guidance in conservation and gratis specialist assistance
in connection with repairs and building additions.
3) It is necessary to establish private evaluation criteria for architectural forms and landscaping
and for the extent to which the desirable Kyoto urban-scape has been achieved.
Although the Kyoto District should encompass the entire city,
a stage-by-stage arrangement is conceivable. (I do not have in mind anyting on the scale
of the present conservation-district system.) The district will include those linear areas
where high-rise buildings stand on either side of roads. Consequently,
it will require extensive rethinking of urban planning to convert these haphazardly planned linear
strips into planar territories.
The Kyoto District determines urban planning on the basis, not of linear strips,
but of planar regions. In this way it eliminates the confusion caused by mixed use of land
and trouble arising from building-height discrepancies.
This in turn will make possible a revival of both the city scene and modern urban function.
This report is no mere self-indulgent urban-planning dream. It is not merely pleasing words.
Indeed, administrators are likely to find its words so displeasing that they will do all
they can to endanger its implementation. Nonetheless, transcending criticism of current conditions,
it proposes pratical policies that, though difficult, are implementable.
The Kyoto District is part of a mechanism for revitalizing the real Kyoto.
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