Hideaki Ishikawa's thoughts on amusement places and his work in Nagoya

Abstract

Hideaki Ishikawa was one of the most important Japanese modern city planners. He was convinced that cities had to enrich people's lives, and he wanted to establish modern city planning as a discipline. Ishikawa was well-known as a man of unique ideas and he enthusiastically studied amusement places (sakari-ba). In this paper, I focus on how he developed his ideas on amusement places and how he put them into practice in designing amusement places for rich people's enjoyment during the period of time he worked in Nagoya (1920-1933). To better understand Ishikawa's practices, I refer to H. Lefebvre's conception of recognition of space. Lefebvre's conception has three dimensions. "Representations of space": conceptualized space, the space of planners; "Space of representation": space as directly lived, the space of "inhabitants" and "users"; and, "Spatial practice": creation of space by the interaction of the other two dimensions. From this, therefore, city planning would be regarded as "representations of space", while amusement places in which people enjoyed their lives would be regarded as "space of representation." "Space of representation" has the possibility of creating a new movement of thought to counter the control of space by city planning. Ishikawa always criticized Japanese city planning as being just a plan for land use which did not significantly consider people's lives. So he searched for a way to create a city planning for the people. He wrote a series of thirty-four articles on "The story of a Local City" in the magazine, Creation of the City (Toshi Sousaku). He explained his vision of the modern city and about how city planning should be conducted. Ishikawa was gradually able to create his own theory of amusement places in his planning. The following four keywords characterize his modern city planning in his serial writing. The keywords are: "city planning for the night", "small city doctrine", "a bustling and lively square" , and "hometown city". The first one, "city planning for the night", was an idea to restore the functional role of the night. Ishikawa thought that many planners made a plan for the "industrious time" when people worked during the daytime, but, at night, people were set free from their labors and relaxed. Ishikawa changed this idea and reorganized a plan for people to enjoy their leisure time at night. He paid attention to street lighting, especially lighting for buildings, the layout of amusement facilities, and so on. The next idea is "small city doctrine". Ishikawa rejected the big city. He insisted that an ideal city should be within the scale where people could feel intimacy among neighbors. Though a city may be big, each town in a city should have a center which would be a psychological anchor for people, which should be combined organically, and in which the center should be a lively square. The next idea is "bustling and lively square". Ishikawa recognized that people tend to gather in a square to look for closeness with one another, and also a square should offer people some way to satisfy their desires. Thus, he noted the importance of shopping and regarded shopping malls as "an casting vote". He therefore combined squares with shopping malls. The last keyword is "hometown city". Ishikawa recognized the importance of the square in Western cities, but stressed that Japanese city planning should not blindly imitate Western cities without considering the character of each city. Ishikawa thus decided to transform the Western square into an amusement place (sakari-ba in Japanese) where people could enjoy flowing down the street. Based on these thoughts, Ishikawa tried to design his ideal city. However, he thought that, not only city planners, but also citizens should participate in the planning process. Ishikawa referred to his activities with citizens as "unofficial works", one of which was a study group on the bgauty of Nagoya city, where people could think about how to create a plan for amusement places using shop windows, shop signs and other decorations. Hirokouji, which was one of the most important amusement place in Nagoya, alive with people and many nightstands, lost its excitement with the appearance of cold concrete buildings and lots of vacant places. Ishikawa's study group suggested that these places should not be left vacant, but rather that they should have illuminated streets and that street stands should be opened in order to maintain a vibrant town. This idea was obviously different from the official mode of thinking, which wanted total orderly beauty. Moreover, Ishikawa held a carnival in Hirokouji, and in this festival he aimed to evoke the people's memories of the past. This is why he paid great attention to an appeal to local color, history and people's memories. Ishikawa was also involved with the planning of Osu, another amusement place in Nagoya which was a lively place built around many temples dating from the Edo era. Ishikawa planned to create new and exciting streets with the merchants in Osu. He also planned new roads, an arcade made of glass designed like a passage, and a street where there were many restaurants. Through his work with citizens he suggested the idea of a "manager of amusement places". He believed that the work of a city planner was the management of merchants' activities. Finally, through his practices, Ishikawa aimed at city planning in order that people could enjoy their lives. Clearly, this was different from abstract spaces or producing a city plan just for city planning. His attempts had various limits, but he made much of his dialogue with citizens and paid great attention to people's lives. This viewpoint seems to me to be very important in order to create flexible spaces, even in contemporary Japan, and I believe that his experiment surely offers significant ideas and lessons.