recently this sort of theme-park concepts have been eroding the real city, mainly in suburbia. there are plenty of residential sights developed with themes of, for example, italy, germany, england, and more. some name themselves as "Lebenplatz," some market themselves by "having the identity of italian style architecture" or "duplicating the good-old-times of Cotswolds" and so on. if u visit housing companies homepages, there are thousands of these. and u will instantly notice the unique ways of interpreting them.
italian style (from http://kodate.homes.co.jp/s/special/369/list_rws100/?scid=ls01)
hmm, in which points?
Cotswolds style (from http://kodate.homes.co.jp/s/special/369/list_rws100/?scid=ls01)
Cotswolds (from wiki)
hmm im really not sure whether this Cotswolds style is actually replicating the same Cotswolds ive found on the internet.
this sort of trend is even invading the space of central business districts of tokyo.
in Shiodome, newly developed CBD in tokyo, there is a district replicating the city of Reggio Emilia in Italy. its piazza was completed in 2003, and the district as a whole was completed in 2007.
the main redevelopment sight of Shiodome was owned by JR so that the consensus building for the redevelopment was not a difficult task, i believe, although the district is not necessarily well developed. on the contrary, there were various landowners involved with the redevelopment of the sight of Shiodome Italia. from this aspect, its really surprising that they could reach to the consensus to replicate Italy here, because if i were there, i would not really understand the purpose to build a fake italian city there.
when i first visited there, what came to my mind was "not that bad at all." what made me surprised was the street fabric and urban structure. unlike other parts of the city, it had stone paths and there was even a piazza-kind of public space. these were positive because 1) it looked different from others, and 2) its generous enough to provide benches on the public space, which is rather rare in this country.
but while i was strolling the area, i had to change my mind eventually.
usually european cities have their symbols next to their town squares, and they are "symbols of religious, political, military, educational, and cultural interests." Shiodome Italia has this JRA building as its symbol. JRA stands for Japan Racing Association, which deals with horse racing as its business, which is not quite "religious, political, military, educational and cultural" in my opinion. whats more, as you can see, its facade is rather ugly and looks like 3-stories Parthenon which i dont think is from italy.
and when i approached to the square, what i noticed was that it had no intention to welcome people. it was a lovely sunny day but at the same time was a cruelly hot and humid day. it was rather suicidal to stay outside under the sunshine for a long time. yet what it provided was just some benches and tiny trees. squares today are supposed to have "modern commercial functions, such as [...] restaurants" or cafes with some nice tents or umbrellas to provide some decent shades. there was no way i could stay in this piazza.
squares in europe are usually meeting spots and supposed to be places that somethings going on. but here, nothing was happening.
ive never been to Reggio Emilia so there might be the slightest possibility that it looks exactly like this. but what ive learnt about cities and observed in europe are totally different from what Shiodome Italia presents.
Shiodome Italia clearly declares that it duplicates Reggio Emilia, so i have no intention to deny that. likewise, i have zero intention to deny that those examples from suburbia dont duplicate italian houses or english towns or whatsoever.
what i really dont understand is the way they duplicate. at least i cant comprehend how they duplicate what they are duplicating. i might need to learn japanese ways of interpretations of cities in order to become able to understand what majority of japanese people want in cities.
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