Preserving Tokyo’s Alleyways: from Marginal to Neighbourhood Place?

Abstract

Marginalised through the emergence of new forms of housing and public spaces, re-appropriated by different fields, and re-invented by contemporary urban design discourse, the social meaning attached to the alleyway roji is being re-interpreted to fit hybrid and multiple concepts of living and lifestyles.Focusing on empirical data collected during fieldwork conducted in the local community of Tsukudajima in contemporary Tokyo between 2007-2009, the paper will first investigate the kind of functions the roji fulfilled in the city in the past, focussing secondly on the question of what kind of consequences the discussed urban design approaches will have on the revival of the roji, and what urban designers are actually aiming for: the re-invention/modernization of local urban areas or the preservation of remaining urban alleys.

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