Explain in summary-

The Tokyo Bay region is characterized by one of the highest concentrations of

mega-projects in Asia. Starting in Japan’s notorious ‘bubble economy’ in the early

1980s, a series of large-scale developments have been carried out in the Bay as well

as in the surrounding areas. At present there are more than 40 mega-projects

taking place in the Bay, belonging to different municipalities or counties including

Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa and Yokohama. Along the shoreline in Narita,

Makuhari, Odaiba, Shinagawa and the port area of Yokohama, there are also a

series of new urban developments, forming an arc of mega-projects around the

edge of Tokyo Bay. These ambitious projects feature mass reclamation of land,

large-scale infrastructure, impressive architecture and the most up-to-date

technologies. Some of the developments serve as autonomous city districts or

even new city centres, prominent among them the Tokyo Teleport Town and the

Yokohama Minato Marai 21. They compete with each other in attracting

international investments, business activities and tourists, but they are also well connected to each other and participate together in the formation of one of the

greatest megalopolises in the world (Gottmann, 1961; Bognar, 1998).

Coined by Jean Gottmann in his 1961 book, the term ‘megalopolis’ was

originally employed to describe the exceptionally dense urban agglomeration in

the northeastern seaboard of the United States. Japan’s Tokaido area is widely

regarded as another high-density megalopolis. Largely following the old

‘Tokaido’ route from Tokyo to Kyoto, the Tokaido Megalopolis now consists of

a few most populous metropolises of the country and accommodates 40% of

Japan’s population, approximately 50 million people. The Tokyo Metropolitan

Area features the highest density within the megalopolis. Some 23.4% of Japanese

live in only 2% of the country’s total area (Kodansha International, 1999).

However, the tradition of mega-project development in Tokyo Bay can be

traced back to the megastructural movement in the 1960s, from which it drew

inspiration in planning and design. Megastructure was a particularly

influential architectural movement in Japan in the early 1960s. It featured a

number of futuristic urban schemes by the avant-garde architects’ group called

‘Metabolism’, as well as the works of other architects who were influenced by

the Metabolist theory. Kenzo Tange (1913–2005), who was often regarded as

the mentor of these Metabolist architects, published a radical plan for Tokyo in

1960. This scheme featured a series of interlocking highway loops that would

expand Tokyo across the Bay, representing the most striking form of

megastructural planning (Figure 1). It was also one of the first comprehensive

attempts to reclaim Tokyo Bay, and sparked great enthusiasm in this new

urban frontier in the following decades. As a result, by the end of the 20th

century, there has been more than $84 billion of investment in the megaprojects undertaken in the Bay, with a total area of 634 hectares (Olds, 1995;

Sorensen, 2002).

Nevertheless, among the ongoing projects in Tokyo Bay, few, if any, adopt a

mega-form in terms of their planning, although some individual buildings have

the appearance of megastructures. One such building is Fuji TV Headquarters

located in the Tokyo Teleport Town, and it is not a coincidence that it was designed

by the Kenzo Tange Associates (Figure 2). From Tange’s megastructural vision in

the 1960s to the mega-projects in Tokyo Bay starting in the 1980s, there has been a

remarkable evolution in planning concepts and urban development strategies.

Underlying these changes is the substantial transformation of economic patterns

and social ideologies that occurred as Japanese society entered the post-industrial

era. What remains, however, is the heroic ambition of creating total environments

that serve as model cities of their epochs.

To study the transformation of urban design concepts of large-scale

development in the Tokyo Bay, this paper focuses on two epochal megaprojects, Tange’s 1960 Tokyo Bay Plan and the Yokohama Minato Mirai 21,

proposed respectively in the era of Japan’s rapid industrialization and the

period when the nation was undertaking a reorganization of its post-industrial

economy. The paper examines the continuation and transformation of these

mega-projects in terms of their socio-economic objectives, planning approaches,

relationships between architecture and infrastructure and the embodied notion

of symbolism. A number of questions will be addressed: what were the political

and economic forces that motivated the mega-visions in the 1960s and those in

the 1980s respectively? To what extent have the megastructural schemes,

especially Tange’s plan, influenced the planning of the current mega-projects in Tokyo Bay, and in what aspects do they differ from each other? What role does

the practice of urban design play in these projects in lending shape to the

public domain and in creating a relationship between local networks and the

increasingly globalized economical and cultural patterns? Through the analysis,

it is argued that these mega-projects were both instruments and products of the

major socio-economic re-structuring of their times. They often came as idealistic

efforts to create ‘perfect cities’ or ‘ideal places’ serving as a model for future

urban development Before looking at Tange’s Tokyo Bay Plan, a brief examination is made of the

definition of ‘megastructure’. In fact, this concept was coined by one of the

Metabolist architects, Fumihiko Maki. In his 1964 book entitled Investigations in

Collective Form, Maki defined three prototypes of urban forms: the compositional

form, the megastructure, and the group form (Maki, 1964). According to him, the

megastructure is “a large frame in which all the functions of a city or part of a city

are housed” (Maki, 1964, p. 8). Although he traced its inspiration to ancient Italian

hill-towns, nevertheless, he insisted that the megastructure was “made possible by

present technology” (Maki, 1964, p. 8). Maki’s incisive observation helped to

conceptualize the new methodology that was emerging from the practice of city

design in the late 1950s. Soon this new phenomenon turned into a great

architectural movement throughout the world. By the time when Reyner Banham’s

monograph Megastructure was published, he was able to identify hundreds of

projects, built and unbuilt, which he termed “the dinosaurs of the Modern

Movement” (Banham, 1976, pp. 8–9). Banham described the megastructure as

composed of elements in two extreme scales: a structural framework and numerous

modular units. These two kinds of elements have different durations, thus making

the system capable of unlimited extension both spatially and temporally. In 1986,

Jonathan Barnett’s book The Elusive City gave another concise and insightful

definition to megastructure—‘the city as a building’ (Barnett, 1986). Barnett

declared: “From the mid 1950s, and for almost twenty years, the year of an urban

area as a large, interconnected building dominated much architectural thinking

about cities” (Barnett, 1986, p. 157). All of these three authors captured the

important characteristics of megastructure, that is, a gigantic urban framework

highly integrated with infrastructure, accommodating numerous individual units

and serving as a self-contained urban area. All these monographs characterized

Tange’s 1960 plan for Tokyo as an illumination of the megastructural idea In 1960, a group of young architects who called themselves the Metabolists

emerged at the World Design Conference in Tokyo. Included in the group were the

architects Kiyonori Kikutake, Masato Otaka, Fumihiko Maki, Noriaki Kurakawa

and the architectural critic Noboru Kawazoe (Stewart, 1987; Yatsuka, 1997). They

published a pamphlet for the conference entitled Metabolism 1960—The Proposals

for New Urbanism, including their avant-garde manifestos on city design and a

series of futuristic plans (Kawazoe et al., 1960). These architects rejected the

Modernist notion of city as a mechanical object, and viewed it instead as an

organic process. Stimulated by rapid technological progress, they proposed

visions of new cities expanding in futuristic ways—erected on the sea or spiralling

into the sky. Their schemes featured the separation of permanent structures and

transient elements in construction according to their different durations or socalled ‘metabolic cycles’ (Kawazoe, 1961). These Metabolists often used Tokyo Bay

as the site of their experimental schemes, prominent among them being

Kikutake’s ‘Ocean City’ and Kurokawa’s ‘Helix City’. Through these ideal plans,

they dreamed of establishing a new order not only for the city’s physical form, but

also for the development of society as a whole (Yatsuka, 1997; Lin, 2006). Although

the Metabolist visions were never realized on the scale of a city, these architects

managed to carry out their ideas in several building projects, integrating a major

structure with small living cells. Among their most well-known projects were a

few pavilions for the 1970 World’s Fair in Osaka and Kurokawa’s Nakagin

Building in Tokyo in 1972 (Figure 3).

Tange’s Tokyo Bay Plan, published with the title A Plan for Tokyo, 1960—

Toward a Structural Reorganization, came out only 6 months after the debut of the

Metabolist group. The architect initiated his plan from an interpretation of what

he termed the world’s ‘pivotal cities’, that is, those with a population of 10 million

or more. According to his point of view, such cities, including Tokyo, were in a

state of confusion and paralysis, because the physical structures of the cities had

“grown too old to cope with the current rate of expansion” (Kenzo Tange Team,

1961, p. 6). There was no other way to save the cities except through a radical

transformation of their fundamental structures. As these pivotal cities were

undergoing a dramatic transition of their economic power from the primary or

secondary sectors to the tertiary sector, the city could no longer be treated as a
composition of separate functional zones as suggested by the orthodox

Modernists, but rather an open complex linked together by a communication

network. Mobility was the factor that gave life to the city’s organization, and the

transportation system was the physical foundation of the city’s operation. The

importance of the communication system within the city was articulated by

Tange, who used a biological metaphor: “It is the arterial system which preserves

the life and human drive of the city, the nervous system which moves its brain.

Mobility determines the structure of the city” (Kenzo Tange Team, 1961, p. 7). The

urgency of re-establishing the current physical structure of city was first brought

about by the rapid proliferation of individual automobiles. The introduction of

automobiles into urban life determined that the relationship between architecture

and the street could no longer be the same as in the traditional cities, and thus

demanded a redefinition of existing city layouts. At the same time, it also allowed

cities to continue to expand outwards, which often resulted in dramatic urban

growth as well as a chaotic urban landscape.

Aiming for reorganization of its urban structure, Tange’s plan envisioned a

new Tokyo, which extended across the Bay to reach the opposite shore. The most notable feature was a central spine carrying a complex highway system, which

consisted of a series of interlocking loops and extended 18 kilometres out to the

sea (Figures 4 and 5). The first loop would frame the existing city centre of Tokyo;

the next would overstep the shoreline. The third and fourth would be entirely over

water. Within these links there would be a new civic centre and a port. The empty

fifth link contains only a harbour, and the space within the subsequent links is

again occupied by office and public buildings. These buildings took the form of

habitable bridge trusses spanning gigantic service towers that were arranged on a

rectangular grid with an interval of 200 metres. Tange named it as the ‘core and

pilotis’ system after Le Corbusier’s inventions. Beyond the fifth link, a number of

subsidiary freeways departed from the central spine at right-angles, connecting

the main line to clusters of tent-like residential units which spread across the

broader water (Kenzo Tange Team, 1961; Banham, 1976). These terraced housing

blocks were intended to be gigantic artificial grounds upon which the residents

could build their own houses.

Apparently, Tange conceived of the city as a gigantic structure with a

hierarchical arrangement of circulations and programs. His fundamental goal was

to transform the current radial structure of Tokyo, which he called a ‘closed

system’, into a linear structure, which represented an ‘open system’ (Kenzo Tange

Team, 1961). From his point of view, Tokyo’s current centripetal organization was

the structure of a medieval city, too obsolete and dysfunctional for a city of Tokyo’s

current magnitude. Therefore, he called for the replacement of it with a new

hierarchical system centred on a linear circulation spine. This linear spine would

become the future axis of Tokyo, a city designed for continuous growth and

regeneration.

Tange’s linear city thus stood in stark contrast to the National Capital Region
Plan proposed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in 1958. This governmental plan followed Sir Patrick Abercrombie’s 1944 Plan for London, and advocated
a

centripetal pattern of development through a greenbelt and a series of satellite cities

(Abercrombie, 1945; Tokyo Metropolitan Government, 1994). Tange argued that his

civic axis was superior to the idea of satellite cities, because it allowed for the

spontaneous mobility characteristic of the contemporary era on the one hand, and

maintained the proper relationship between different sections of the city on the other.

However, more significantly, the linear axis would transcend mere questions of

transportation as its form-giving feature and become the symbol of the postindustrial city (Kenzo Tange Team, 1961).

However, a question arose: why would Tange push his megastructural city onto

the sea rather than directing development to the periphery of Tokyo? The answer had

to be found in the dramatic growth of population and rapid concentration of

industries in Tokyo in the post-war period, which had created unprecedented

pressure on its urban development. Tokyo’s population tripled in barely 15 years

after World War II, from 2.78 million in 1945 to 8.31 million in 1960 (Cybriwsky, 1991;

Hirro, 2003). The rocketing price of land and increasingly dispersed land ownership

forced people to seek new sites for building. Before Tange’s plan, there had been

several attempts to create new cities in the Bay, starting with a conceptual scheme in

1958 by Hisaaki Kano, a prestigious industrialist (Tange & Fujimori, 2002). Kano was

the former mayor of Chiba and former president of the Japan Housing Corporation, a

semi-public real estate company that had been involved in many large developments

during the post-war period. His plan called for the creation of several artificial islands

in the middle of the Bay by levelling the mountains in the Boso Peninsula. This

concept was later developed into the more detailed Neo-Tokyo Plan in 1959 with the

collaboration of the Industrial Planning Committee, and this bold idea aroused great

enthusiasm. The Metabolists went on to propose a series of schemes for Tokyo Bay,

including Otaka’s ‘Tokyo Bay City’ (1959), Kikutake’s ‘Ocean City’ (1960), and

Kurokawa’s ‘Helix City’ (1961). However, instead of creating artificial islands, the

Metabolists employed moveable structures that would float over the sea (Kawzoe,

1962; Nitschke, 1964). Their plans apparently inspired Tange. In the 1959 meeting of

the Congress Internationaux de l’Architecture Moderne(CIAM) in Otterlo, Tange argued

for these marine cities: “Tokyo is expanding but there is no more land so we shall have

to expand into the sea” (Newman, 1961, p. 184). This argument justified Tange’s own

attempt for Tokyo barely one year later, in which he pushed forward the concept of

city united with sea and developed it with more sophisticated architectural language.

In Tange’s scheme, the ocean was treated as a new topography. There was no

fundamental difference between the land and the sea, as the loop-shaped highway

system would extend continuously from the existing centre of Tokyo into the Bay and

then reach the Chiba Prefecture on the opposite shore. The residential blocks would

also be erected directly on the sea.

Tange’s Tokyo Bay Plan was immediately very influential. However, it

remained a visionary dream with no possibility of being carried out because of

both technical and socio-political constraints. This megastructural plan demanded

a complete integration of city and architecture because the highway system itself

was turned into a gigantic building. Such an enormous hierarchical structure,

once built, might be efficient for organizing traffic, but would hardly be flexible for

the future development of the city, and could be disastrous for urban life because

it totally neglected the human scale. Moreover, in order to give the city a new

structure, the plan entailed nothing less than a complete redefinition of social

organization. To ensure sufficient financial sources and administrative measure to realize such a megastructural city, it potentially required an extremely
powerful

authority, which was simply non-existent in Japan’s post-war political

environment. When Japan was hit by the energy crisis in 1973, the megastructural

fantasies quickly faded away.

Nevertheless, Tange’s Tokyo Bay Plan came as a particularly strong stimulus

for the ensuing urban developments in Tokyo. Due to the increasing concentration

of population and industries, more and more political leaders, industrialists and

professionals realized that the expansion of the city into the Bay was not only a

reasonable solution, but also probably the best one. Because of the scarcity of land

and the rocketing price of land in the city, it was actually less expensive to create

new land over the sea, and people could also sidestep the complicated land

ownership issue that was often associated with large development projects.

Tange’s spectacular urban form significantly raised the credibility of such largescale urban interventions. It also provided a model of systemic approach in

planning, which featured the integration of urban infrastructure and architecture,

and advocated a spatial organization based on a circulation network rather than

the rigid methods of zoning. Stimulated by Tange’s plan, the reclamation and

development of Tokyo Bay moved on piecemeal and spread gradually from Tokyo

to other prefectures surrounding Tokyo Bay, including Yokohama.

Yokohama Minato Mirai 21

Yokohama Minato Mirai 21 (MM21) is so far the most successful mega-project in

the Tokyo Bay area. The Japanese name Minato Mirai 21 literally means ‘the future

port city of the 21st century’. It is the core of Yokohama’s comprehensive ‘Plan for

the 21st Century’, initiated by the municipal government in 1981. This plan is

intended to revitalize Yokohama’s port area, promote its independent position

and decentralize business functions away from central Tokyo (Yokohama

Municipal Government, 1989). The MM21’s ambition is to become an

international cultural centre active around the clock, an information city of the

21st century, and a human environment surrounded by water, greenery and

history (Yokohama MM 21 Corporation, 2004). More importantly, the completion

of MM21 is expected to connect two isolated downtown districts, the historical

centre Kannai-Isezakicho and the new centre built around Yokohama Station in

the post-war era, thus consolidating the urban structure of Yokohama.

The origins of the MM21 were complex and rooted in decades of

economic restructuring, technological change and shifting governmental policy.

It reflected a structural transformation of an urban economy from industrybased sectors to sophisticated producer services, advanced technologies and

research and development that started in the 1980s. Since the modernization of

Japan in the mid-19th century, Yokohama had been identified as the nation’s

main port and industrial base. With its heavy and chemical industries, the city

continued to boom in support of the country’s economic growth following

World War II. However, its business and commercial functions were largely

consumed by the sprawl of Tokyo, transforming it into a huge ‘suburban

town’ (Green & Nishimoto, 2005). This imbalance in economic structure posed

a critical question with regard to the city’s continuing development as it

entered the post-industrial era, which demanded drastic restructuring.

As a port city, Yokohama also faced the challenges resulting from the

decline in passenger ship services and the increase in containerization of cargo shipments. On the one hand, the market for traditional passenger ship services

continued to shrink because of the expansion of air, road and railroad

transport. On the other hand, the modern container ships demanded much

larger space for docks and storage facilities, as well as a direct connection not

only to the city, but to the region as a whole. Many traditional ports

throughout the world had to be relocated in order to adapt to the new

technologies and industrial standards. New ports were usually built outside of

the historic urban areas, which opened up large tracts of derelict land on the

waterfront (Olds, 1995).

Among the well-known examples that manifested the impact of containerization was the relocation of the Port of New York to the current location in New

Jersey across the river. It led to a series of redevelopment projects along

Manhattan’s waterfront areas (Gordon, 1997). In Japan, the rocketing value of land

in the ‘Bubble Economy’ during the 1980s accelerated these structural transitions

and further stimulated the development of mega-projects in the rediscovered

waterfront areas. It coincided with a series of new policies and incentives by the

Japanese government in order to re-direct the urban economy to the tertiary

sector, and to prepare its cities for the global competition in the information age.

Yokohama MM21 was among many projects that came into being in this socioeconomic context.

MM21 occupies 465 acres of waterfront land, 190 of which are built on

landfill. The land was originally owned by the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

Corporation, and used as shipyards and piers before they were finally deserted in

the late 1970s. In the years of ‘Bubble Economy’, the city negotiated a deal with

Mitsubishi to obtain the land, and the shipyards were relocated. The Minato Mirai

21 Corporation was established in 1984 to coordinate the design, development and

management of this US$20 billion project. It served as the third party acting

between the private sector and the governments. A model of public/private

partnership was thus formed: the city of Yokohama was responsible for land

reclamation, land readjustment and construction of infrastructure and public

facilities; the private companies invested in business and housing developments

after infrastructure was provided; and the MM21 Corporation was responsible for

the planning of the project and the operation of public facilities (Yokohama MM 21
Corporation, 2004).

It was not a coincidence that Masato Otaka, one of the founding members of

the Metabolist group, became the chief planner of MM21. Tange and the

Metabolist architects had been actively involved in several mega-projects since the

1960s, for example, Tange’s new Tokyo City Hall, Maki’s Nippon Convention

Centre and Osaka’s Tama New Town. Otaka’s plan for MM21 in 1981 called for a

multi-functional urban district for 10 000 residents and 190 000 work population.

The basic structure was a grid system of street-blocks, with high-rise buildings

dominating most of the super blocks (Figure 6). The areas along the shoreline were

largely devoted to greenery, which would form a continuous greenbelt

surrounding the business and commercial districts. Several urban axes were to

be created to direct the gradual development in phases and to maintain its

connections with existing urban centres and railway stations. Like the earlier

megastructural proposals, Otaka’s plan was characterized by a complex spatial

circulation system that organized pedestrian spaces, roads, highways and rail

lines on different levels through the construction of multi-level underground

facilities and overhead crossings (Figure 7). However, instead of concentrating all urban activities on a single dominating spine as seen in Tange’s 1960 Plan for

Tokyo (the same can be said of the megastructural scheme for Battery Park City of

1969), MM21’s street-grid system on the ground provided more choices and

diverse means of urban transportation, complying to the principles of the then

emerging postmodernist city planning. This represented an initial difference

between the mega-projects of the 1980s from the earlier attempts.

Although the plan for MM21 has been revised several times in the following

decades due to the fluctuating economy and continuous technological advance,

the framework of Otaka’s master plan remains (Figure 8). Its skeleton consists of

three city axes, namely, the King Axis, the Queen Axis and the Grand Mall Axis.

The King Axis and the Queen Axis start from the Yokohama Central Railway

Station and Sakuragicho Railway Station respectively, directing people flows

moving through MM21 and reaching the seashore at the other end, while the

Grand Mall Axis intersects with the other two axes in the middle (Figure 9). These

axes serve as linear open spaces and vistas, each one having different spatial qualities. The Grand Mall Axis in the centre is a wide and spacious open mall with

extensive greenery, linking a series of cultural destinations (Figure 10). The Queen

Axis in the south is a vibrant inner mall that moves through several large

commercial spaces (Figure 11), and the King Axis in the north is an open mall that

links diversified land use zones before reaching the seashore. These axes indicate

MM21’s resolution to break away from Japanese cities’ notorious development

pattern for a more orderly way of organizing the urban growth.

With this comprehensive framework set, a number of huge infrastructure and

building projects were carried out. Besides the completion of mass land

reclamation, several new boulevards, underpasses, arterial roads and a Yokohama

Bay Bridge have been constructed, together with an extensive railway and

pedestrian network. Several large-scale building complexes have been completed,

including the Yokohama Art Museum (1989) designed by Kenzo Tange, the

Pacifico Yokohama (1991) and Queens Square Yokohama (1997), both designed by

Nikken Sekkei, and the 296-metre-high Landmark Tower (1998) designed by the American architect Hugh Stubbins (Yokohama MM21 Corporation, 2002)
(Figures

12 and 13). A new International Passenger Ship Terminal designed by the Foreign

Office Architects also opened on a land adjacent to MM21 in 2002. It is notable that

most of the skyscrapers in the early phases of development were concentrated

along the Queen Axis parallel to the shoreline. They were intended to create an

impressive skyline to showcase a thriving urban centre, although many building

plots within MM21 are still awaiting development.

Another element that distinguishes MM21 from the previous megastructural

proposals is open space, which assumes an important position in its planning. In

addition to the linear pedestrian malls, a considerable portion of land is devoted

to a variety of parks, plazas and waterfront promenades. Parks and greenery

account for 115 acres, or one-quarter of the total area. Rikoh Park is the largest

green space in MM21. It is characterized by several water and greenery features

and a fine view of the curved shoreline, the bridge and the port (Figure 14). Unlike

Tange’s Tokyo Bay Plan that assigned the waterfront areas to industrial uses, the

seashore in MM21 is exclusively reserved for parks and leisure space, maximizing

the potential for people to interact with the ocean. Moreover, the original

industrial facilities in the port of Yokohama have been transformed into places of

entertainment. One of the former Mitsubishi dockyards has been rebuilt into a

unique sunken plaza, which is used for a variety of outdoor performances

(Figure 15). Two old warehouses in the Shinkoh District, dating from 1908 and

known as Yokohama Red Brick Buildings, have been preserved to recreate the

culture of the port. Opening up to a waterfront park, they now house a tourist

service centre and a variety of shops and cafe´s (Figure 16).

In fact, there is a strong emphasis on tourism and commercial activities

throughout MM21, indicating the orientation of urban development in Japan’s

post-industrial era. Along the Queen Axis that links several skyscrapers are a

series of large multi-storey shopping complexes with hundreds of stores,

restaurants, cafe´s and entertainment centres. The two biggest malls are Landmark

Plaza and Queen’s Plaza Yokohama, associated with the Landmark Tower and the

Queen Square respectively. They are organized around continuous central arcades

that form the main axis. These malls are directly connected to underground

transit stations, following a tradition of urban development in Tokyo. Alongside

these linear malls are plazas and open spaces, which provide places for art

performances and public events, and link further to waterfront parks.

However, the development process of MM21 does not follow a straight line.

Just as the impact of the 1973 Energy Crisis on megastructures, the ‘Bursting of

the Bubble’, which began in the 1990s, considerably reduced the pace of megaproject developments in Tokyo Bay. MM21 was no exception. Plagued by a

dramatic economic downturn and a decrease in demand for office space, work
on the MM21 slowed down drastically in the 1990s, and many constructions are

still yet to be completed. In the face of these challenges, the city of Yokohama and the MM21 Corporation carried out a series of economic incentive plans to
keep

the project moving along the right paths and to encourage the relocation of

business to this area (Green & Nishimoto, 2005). At the same time, since less

private investments were coming in, the MM21 Corporation focused more on the

construction of cultural facilities and open spaces, and hosted various large

events that have effectively attracted tourists from throughout the country as

well as from abroad. The investments in cultural and public facilities also

brought the area great vitality and urbanity, and allowed the project to continue

to develop into the next economic cycle (Olds, 1995; Yokohama MM 21

Corporation, 2002).

Continuation and Transformation of Mega-projects

The emergence and transformation of mega-projects in Japan have always been

tied to economic fluctuations in the country as well as to the progress of

technology. This relationship is even more conspicuous in times of rapid economic

expansion, and constitutes interesting comparisons between the megastructures

of the 1960s and the mega-projects which began in the 1980s. The 1960s were the

heyday of the ‘Japanese Miracle’ and innovations of industrial technology in

Japan. It was thus not surprising that architects, riding on the times, dreamed

of new types of architecture and new urban forms of the future. The 1980s saw

the rise of Japanese ‘Bubble Economy’ and a rapid development of information

technology. These factors again served as strong stimuli to the real estate sector,

and led to an unprecedented construction boom and dynamic urbanization.

However, when it entered the economic downturns, mega-projects were among

those that suffered most. The energy crisis of 1973 not only drastically slowed the

momentum of the post-war economic miracle, but forced a re-evaluation of

existing approaches to planning and design in Japan. The faith in technological

and social progress and their perpetual continuation, which used to justify the

Metabolist megastructures, suddenly became open to doubt. Following the

‘Bursting of the Bubble’ in the 1990s, the mega-projects in the Tokyo Bay area also

encountered serious frustrations, and had to react in a variety of ways to the

changing economic conditions. Some performed a little better than the others, and

some simply disappeared as the economy stagnated.

An examination of Tange’s Tokyo Bay Plan and the Yokohama Mirato Mirai

21 reveals remarkable similarities in several aspects of mega-project development

in Tokyo Bay during these two periods of economic growth. First, these projects have always been driven by a strong techno-optimism. Tange and the
Metabolists’

visions relied heavily on the application of the most up-to-date or even futuristic

technologies, such as large-span structures and replaceable living units,

sometimes in a symbolic way. Their utopian belief in technological progress

was most apparent at the 1970 Osaka World Fair, in which Tange and the
Metabolists created an ‘instant city’ showcasing all kinds of advanced

technologies (Kultermann, 1989; Tange & Fujimori, 2002). The ongoing megaprojects such as MM21 and Tokyo Teleport are also closely associated with the

current developments in engineering and information technology. The advanced

technologies such as the intelligent building system have made possible the

development and scientific management of such huge complexes. These megaprojects invested heavily in advanced communication functions, linking all

members of the community to each other and the world outside through the

‘information highway’ made of fibre-optic cables. It is also remarkable that the

employment of advanced technology in both eras intended to give the projects a

‘futuristic look’ in order to provide them comparative advantages on the

international stage.

Second, the mega-projects in Tokyo Bay have been characterized by an

increasing integration of infrastructure, architecture and public spaces. The

central feature in Tange’s plan was the linear highway system, which not only

accommodated all the public facilities and open spaces, but also served as the axis

for the progressive development of the city. The unique ‘core and pilotis’ system

formed a spatial network combining the transportation system, architecture and

open space. The city essentially became a large building (Barnett, 1986). In MM21,

the conventional planning method of zoning was replaced by a three-dimensional

generative framework organized around infrastructure. Office and commercial

functions were combined with indoor and outdoor public spaces, and linked

directly to multi-level underground transportation nodes. The highways and

streets, mass transit systems and communication and service systems were well

planned and constructed in advance. They served to tie the whole development

together.

The third similarity between mega-projects in the 1960s and those in the 1980s

has to do with their political implications. These projects were meant to become

models of ‘ideal places’ or ‘perfect cities’ in their respective eras. They thus

embraced a strong symbolism in architecture and urban form. From Tange’s point

of view, the spectacular linear highway system was more than a mechanical

necessity for transportation. Instead, its civic axis would make the city adapt to the

continuous growth and transformation characteristic of modern city, and thus

become the symbol of an ‘open society’ (Kenzo Tange Team, 1961). In MM21, the

symbolism is not only apparent in the iconic buildings such as the Landmark

Tower, which became the tallest skyscraper in Japan, but it is also manifested in

the spatial organization of the whole district. The creation of spacious greenery

and numerous cultural facilities, the preservation of historic buildings, the

carefully tailored skyline and the employment of advanced technologies are

meant to showcase a new type of business and cultural urban centre in the age of

information technology and economic globalization (Figure 17).

Although the 1980s and 1990s have in many respects been a repetition of the

1960s, the driving forces behind these periods of tremendous economic progress

were different, as were the socio-political contexts of mega-projects. While the

1960s were associated with Japan’s unprecedented development of an export-oriented economy and industrial technologies, the 1980s witnessed the

transition from an industrial to a post-industrial society, that is, an informationoriented society with a new type of technology in which ‘software’ and

‘programming’, rather than the ‘hardware’, was dominant. These transitions

resulted in important distinctions between the megastructural schemes in the

1960s and the mega-projects created in the 1980s.

In Tange’s plan, the transportation system was the essential component in

making a highly efficient and organized industrial society. The city was designed

according to the Modernist principles, featuring a rationally hierarchical

organization. Such machine aesthetics were not unlike the modern assembly

line first created in Henry Ford’s Model T factory. The housing, community

service and entertainment spaces were regarded as secondary, and placed far

away from the central spine in the plan. However, in MM21 the tertiary sector took

control in the urban economy. The city was therefore treated as a human habitat

and place of communication in which housing, commercial and cultural activities

were the central focus. These uses were mixed throughout the whole area, and

combined with aesthetically laid-out streets, lively outdoor spaces and parks.

Pedestrian areas and broad shorelines were expanded to embrace a network of

green spaces.

The same distinction can be discovered in their attitudes towards history.

Tange thought of the historical centre of Tokyo as a ‘mediaeval’ city which had

“grown too old to cope with the current rate of expansion” (Tange et al., 1961, p. 6).

From his point of view, the traditional urban structure was the root of urban

chaos, such as traffic jams, insufficient housing and untidy scenes. His plan aimed

to pull Tokyo’s major city functions out to the Bay, which was a completely ‘blank

sheet’, awaiting the planner’s boldest creation. In MM21, history was treated

much more carefully, if not in a totally opposite way. The designers and

developers managed to dig out the history of the site, restore the long-unattended

old structures such as the brick warehouses in Shinkoh Island and the Mitsubushi

pier. These old structures were adapted to new uses and highlighted as public places. A late-19th-century sailboat Nihonmaru was also rebuilt and became the

centrepiece of the new Yokohama Marine Museum and Memorial Park on

the waterfront. A number of other museums were located in MM21, including the

Yokohama Museum of Arts. Instead of breaking away from the history of the site,

the new development fully capitalized it to interpret the city as a cultural centre.

Finally, although both the Tokyo Bay Plan and the MM21 employed

linear axes in organizing space and symbolizing the image of the new city,

the concept of a ‘city axis’ is exactly where the most striking difference lies.

In Tange’s plan, the axis was occupied by the highway system. The great size of

this linear transportation structure, which stretched 18 kilometres across the Bay,

the perspicuity of its loop and branch road network, and the formal inventiveness

of the extraordinary buildings all combined to articulate a city form generated in

the age of automobile and mass-production. However, in MM21, the city axes are

reserved for open spaces and cultural facilities. These axes, serving to direct views
towards the ocean, combine commercial spaces, museums, entertainment

facilities, transportation nodes, promenades and parks (Figure 18). They are the

most appropriate representation of the diversity and complexity characteristics of

the post-industrial society.

Conclusion

The ideas of mega-projects in Tokyo Bay have gone through a process of evolution

and transformation in the past few decades. In many respects, the megastructural

movement in the 1960s was the prelude to the wave of mega-project development

that began in the 1980s. Tange and the Metabolists explored an unprecedented

scale in city design, and introduced a new systemic approach to spatial planning which greatly inspired subsequent planners. However, from the comparison

above it is not difficult to discover a fundamental transition in terms of the

dominating values in these two epochs. The different urban forms that they

created reflected the distinct economic patterns, technological means and social

ideologies of their times.

When Tange proposed his Tokyo Bay Plan, the cities in the industrial world

were experiencing the height of urban sprawl. Automobile transport prevailed in

urban development, which resulted in the decentralization of large cities.

Confronting the inefficiency, confusion and inequity of the metropolis, Tange and

his contemporaries attempted to break through the existing parameters for a more

comprehensive approach in city design. Tange’s megastructural city, stretching

out 18 kilometers along the central highway spine, was created in the manner of

mass-production and was meant to accommodate the continuous urban growth in

the era of the automobile. The megastructuralists conceived of cities in a rational

manner and disregarded the essential problems such as human needs and social

interactions. They were also unaware of, or intentionally ignored, the potential

ecological hazards that their megastructural schemes could create because of the

mass reclamation and super-scale construction. Their plans tended to break the

existing links within the human society as well as between the built environment

and the nature. The influence of the community movement initiated in the US

in the 1960s and the ecological protection movement emerging in the 1970s

resulted in the decline of megastructures, and has profoundly changed the notions

of urban development since then.

The mega-projects in Tokyo Bay some 20 years later emerged from a different

economic, social and ideological context. The shift of the urban economy from the

production sector to the tertiary one, which Tange had rightly predicted, became

evident and was manifested in the relocation of ports and the shifting role of

urban waterfronts. Therefore, city planning had to address a number of different

issues such as diversity in urban uses, ecological concerns and challenges of

global competition. These new mega-projects were typically designed with

higher densities, which suggested a preference for mass transit and pedestrianization over automobile transportation. The machine aesthetics exemplified by

Tange’s plan were abandoned in favour of a culture of consumption and leisure

(Lin, 2006). Parks, shopping arcades and historic buildings were employed to
bridge the mega-project with the human scale. The ecological hazard is still an

important concern about large-scale developments, but with the help of advanced

technologies and new design concepts, planners, architects and public agents are

able to alleviate their ecological impact.

The distinctions in economic patterns and social orientations behind the

mega-projects of these two eras are also manifest in their different development

strategies. Although Tange did not clearly frame a plan of implementation, his

ideal urban form implied a highly concentrative and powerful authority that

would be in charge of developing the spine in several phases before any

individual construction could take place. Learning from the lessons of

megastructures, the MM21 Corporation adopted more flexible plans, which

were accompanied by other strategies in developing the site. For instance, it

successfully hosted a series of international events, beginning with the so-called

‘YES-Fair’ (Yokohama Exotic Showcase) in 1989 which brought essential

investment to its infrastructural development and presented an image to the

place. It was followed by the WOMAD (World of Music Arts and Dance Festival in 1992, the Yokohama Biennial Show of Sculpture, and the 2002 Soccer World

Cup. These events not only attracted necessary investment to MM21, but also

brought the new urban district a strong sense of urbanity.

Underlying the change of development strategies is a significant transformation of the role for public authorities, namely, from a creator to a coordinator. Just

as Le Corbusier had done for his Radiant City, Tange apparently addressed his

plan to the authority, which was the only one that could carry out such a megaplan as a complete piece of work with the exact details that he proposed. This

model mirrored the ideas of the Urban Renewal that was reshaping many cities in

the Western world during the same period, in which the public agencies played

a dominating part. The result of such strong governmental intervention, as we

can see now, was disastrous. In the recent developments in Tokyo Bay like

Yokohama MM21, however, the city authorities have tried to avoid intervening

directly in the projects. Rather, they put in place the necessary frameworks and

supported the private developers to complete a variety of projects. The role of the

public authorities thus changed from those who produce the city to those who

promote and regulate its production (Madanipour, 2006). This fundamental

change brought a greater flexibility in urban structure and development strategy,

which is more desirable for cities in the post-industrial era.

Despite all these transitions, the ongoing mega-projects in Tokyo Bay still face

several critical challenges in their development. Like the megastructural plans in

the past, the current speculations in Tokyo Bay retain the dream of shaping the

contemporary images of an ideal city. They tend to create total environments and

to showcase the most up-to-date technologies. Therefore, they try to distinguish

themselves from other urban areas, and are thus more or less isolated from their

surroundings. There is also a tendency that economic considerations become the

main driving force of urban development, giving priority to particular urban

sectors at the expense of others. For instance, while MM21 aims to accommodate

190 000 jobs at its completion, it only plans to provide housing for 10 000 people
(Yokohama MM21 Corporation, 2002). Such an imbalance in the programme has

posed a potential danger to its future development because like Tokyo, Yokohama

is facing greater pressure in providing housing for its growing middle-class

population. The Tokyo Teleport Town is also basically a business and

entertainment district. While MM21 still benefits from being adjacent to historic

urban centres and broader suburban areas, the new developments in the artificial

islands in Tokyo Bay, such as Tokyo Teleport Town, only maintain a weak

connection to existing urban areas through highway bridges or tunnels. For these

reasons, most of the mega-projects in Tokyo Bay are yet to become truly dynamic

urban areas.

Nevertheless, on the broader scale, the mega-projects have contributed

significantly to the urban transformation of Tokyo from a uni-nodal city into a

polycentric metropolis. They participated in the formation of the megalopolis

within which more developments are taking place. Once the mega-projects solve

the problems in their development plans and improve their connections to the

region, they should perform better in the process of urbanization in Japan as well

as in the globalization of the economy and culture. Tokyo has gone to the sea, and

it is certain to continue.

Summary
Explain in easy words

The Tokyo Bay region is a hub of extensive urban development projects, with over 40 mega-
projects spanning Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, and Yokohama. Beginning in the 1980s during Japan's
'bubble economy,' these projects involve mass land reclamation, large-scale infrastructure,
advanced architecture, and cutting-edge technology. Key developments include Tokyo Teleport
Town and Yokohama Minato Marai 21, forming a ring of mega-projects around Tokyo Bay. They
compete for international investments, business, and tourism while contributing to one of the
world's largest megalopolises.

The term 'megalopolis,' coined by Jean Gottmann in 1961, describes highly dense urban
agglomerations, such as Japan's Tokaido area, housing around 40% of Japan's population. The
Tokyo Bay region's tradition of mega-project development can be traced back to the 1960s
megastructural movement, notably influenced by the Metabolism architectural movement. Kenzo
Tange's 1960 Tokyo Bay Plan envisioned a radical transformation, expanding Tokyo across the bay
with interlocking highway loops and significant land reclamation, setting the stage for future
mega-projects in the region.

One notable mega-project in the Tokyo Bay area is Yokohama Minato Mirai 21, aiming to revitalize
Yokohama's port area and create an international cultural hub. It reflects a shift from an industrial
to a service-based economy, driven by factors like containerization and land scarcity due to urban
sprawl. The Minato Mirai 21 Corporation oversees the project through a public-private partnership,
and its completion will connect downtown districts, enhancing Yokohama's urban structure and
global competitiveness. The plan includes a network of axes and multi-level urban infrastructure,
showcasing a departure from past megastructural concepts towards a more diversified and
organized urban growth approach. Several notable buildings and landmarks, such as the Landmark
Tower, the Pacifico Yokohama, and the Yokohama Art Museum, contribute to MM21's evolving
landscape.

The passage describes the differences and similarities between the Tokyo Bay Plan in the 1960s,
proposed by Kenzo Tange and the Metabolists, and the Yokohama Mirato Mirai 21 (MM21) project
in the 1980s and 1990s. The Tokyo Bay Plan focused on large-scale urban design for industrial
growth, heavily influenced by technological advancements and mass-production, while MM21
shifted towards a post-industrial society with a focus on diverse urban uses and cultural
development. The passage emphasizes the role of technology, integration of infrastructure,
architecture, and public spaces, as well as the economic and political implications of these mega-
projects. It also discusses challenges and potential contributions to Tokyo's urban transformation
into a polycentric metropolis.

Abstarct Expain
Answer this question in pointers from passage

How has the planning and development of big projects in the Tokyo Bay area evolved from the
1960s to the present day?

This paper is talking about the Tokyo Bay area in Japan, which has a lot of really big construction
projects. These projects are some of the biggest in all of Asia. The tradition of doing these huge
projects started back in the 1960s when a special kind of architectural movement called the
"megastructural movement" was popular. This movement inspired and influenced the planning
and design of these projects in the Tokyo Bay area.

Over time, from the 1960s to now, how these big projects are planned and developed has changed
a lot. This change happened because Japan's society and economy shifted from being focused on
heavy industry (like factories and manufacturing) to a more modern and diverse economy. This
transformation influenced how these mega-projects were designed and what goals they had.

The passage is specifically looking at two major projects: one from the 1960s by an architect
named Tange called the "Tokyo Bay Plan," and another more recent one called "Yokohama Minato
Mirai 21." It's comparing these two projects in terms of what they wanted to achieve, how they
were planned, how they balanced buildings and infrastructure, and what messages or symbols they
wanted to convey.

In summary, these big projects in the Tokyo Bay area were a response to major changes in society
and the economy. They were like ambitious attempts to create entire cities that would showcase
the best of their times.