URBAN SPACE AND CULTURAL ARCHETYPES

Abstract

This paper analyses cultural and aesthetic phenomena and theirinherent meanings within the Japanese city. In the introduction, Ifirst briefly define the key concepts used in the analysis: culturalarchetype, collective memory, and cultural identity. I will approach the theme from a comparative point of view by examining Japaneseurban features and archetypal principles in contrast to the Europeancity.Early Japanese urbanisation centred around imperial palaces, withthe first cities founded by successive emperors from the 7th centuryonwards in the Nara region, near present-day Kyoto. The orthogonalplan for the imperial capital was copied from the contemporaneousChinese dynasties. Spatial organisation was hierarchical, imperialquarters were located at the northern end of the central south–northaxis of the city, and the most prestigious plots were around theEmperor’s palace. Kyoto, the historical Heian-Kyô, was founded asthe imperial capital in 794.Tokyo, the historical Edo, became a “castle city” in 1457 when amilitary castle was built, and subsequently the capital when theshôgun moved government from Kyoto to Edo in 1603. The shôgun’scastle, the centre of power, intertwined with the hierarchical urbanorder spiralling around it. Edo gradually became a modern capital,Tokyo, while Kyoto remained the traditional centre of high cultureand the seat of the powerless Emperor until 1868.The Japanese city is a cultural metaphor. Psychological uncertainty,due to the country’s location in a precarious earthquake and volcaniczone, and an awareness of the perishability of life based on Buddhistphilosophy, have all deeply influenced both Japanese culture andthe Japanese mind. Emptiness, the Taoist ideal linked to Buddhistthinking, is also reflected in the urban space. For instance, a Japanesecity has no designated urban centre whereas in the European citythis is a culturally and economically accentuated place.In this paper, I also analyse the Japanese spatial concepts ma andoku, along with their archetypal manifestations in urban tissue andstreet scape. While ma means experiencing space in time, oku refers tothe hidden dimension of the urban experience, or the psychologicalstate of processing a path whereby the urban core remains hiddenand only partially discovered.Regardless of Japan’s recent historical and economic development,the cultural characteristics of urban spaces have not changed a greatdeal. Tokyo is still a mosaic city of small village-type communitieswith an inherent feeling of togetherness. Hidenoby Jinnai has calledthis phenomenon an “ethnic continuity” whereby the new and theold are mixed in an ethnic order.