Abstract
This paper investigates relations between cinema, architecture, and the city of Tokyo. First, it discusses the role of cinematography as a medium for reading a city. Movies are considered as a mobile cartography that can be used to travel through the city. Second, it discusses the architectural relationship between memory and Tokyo, and the roles played both by the presence and absence of ruins in the works of architects Isozaki and Rossi. Third, it discusses a film catalogue that represents the most important moments of Tokyo′s 20th century architectural history. After a screening of almost one hundred movies related to Japanese society, forty were chosen because they related directly to Tokyo. They were classified as representative of some important moments of Tokyo′s 20th century urban history. Finally, this paper argues that in defining a cinematic history of Tokyo, some constants emerged: the architecture of Japan′s capital city, as seen through movies, is a realm of mutations in a perpetual state of change.
