Sharing Tokyo - by Mohsen Mostafavi & Kayoko Ota (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Sharing Tokyo is a collection of essays and drawings on the theme of sharing the urban space of Tokyo.

The book questions how "artifice" and the "social world" can be mutually and constructively integrated so that the contemporary urban space can be shared by all. A variety of innovative practices are presented by a diverse group of contributors including renowned scholars, architects, urbanists, and photographers from Japan and the US, and the research team at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
While the discourses and architectural works presented deal with the specificity of Tokyo, they were carefully selected to formulate together a collection of insights, new perspectives, and speculative experiments in urbanism and architecture that can also be used in other contexts.

With contributions by: Mustafa K. Abadan, Shin Aiba, Homi K. Bhabha, Kenta Hasegawa, Kozo Kadowaki, Hiroto Kobayashi, Masami Kobayashi, Japan Research Initiative Team at Harvard GSD, Jouji Kurumado, Seiji M. Lippit, Mitsuyoshi Miyazaki, Mayumi Mori, Mohsen Mostafavi, Jo Nagasaka, Erika Nakagawa, Don O'keefe, Yoshihiko Oshima, Kayoko Ota, Jordan Sand, Yoshihiko Sone, Tsubame Architects, Riken Yamamoto, Shun Yoshie

Review Quotes

"The authors take up the two main features of urban transformation -- the large scale development model and the small scale model of the neighborhood development -- and instead look for alternative ideas and new strategies." --Cube Magazine

"Nicely illustrated throughout, "Sharing Tokyo: Artifice and the Social World" is an original, informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking contribution to the growing library of Architectural Criticism and Urban/Land Use Planning that is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, corporate, college, and university library Architecture collections and supplemental curriculum Architectural Studies lists." --Midwest Book Review

"This book offers an astute and comprehensive look at a new movement that seeks to address the very serious problems Tokyo faces intuited by many residents, but which are difficult to grasp without a broader speculative framework." --Shigeru Ban

"Tokyo is a place where small grass-roots neighborhood projects arise in the interstices between massive developments. Sharing Tokyo analyzes these conflicting trends and demonstrates how the tension between economic activity and humanity serves as the engine for a city in a constant state of transition." --Toyo Ito