Typological Changes of Residential Open Space through the Process of Land Property Management in the Historic Urban Area

Abstract

The original pattern of residential lot subdivision in the historic urban area has been maintained without major changes of its typology even through frequent transactions of land property in the early stage of the modern age. The changes recognized in the space composition of each residential unit in the prewar decades took mostly the form of filling up the open spaces with houses for rent in the rear part of the lot keeping the unit of land ownership undivided. Although broken into small pieces of “niwa”(yard or garden) spase and small alleys, the residential open spaces would still be maintained as a key element of the spase composition of each unit. However, the tradings of land property in the postwar decades, particularly those with subdivision of the former rented house lot and merger of multiple lots chiefly by corporate organizations as well, have generated the condition which led to the typological changes of the open spase in its spatial meaning through the process of individual space renewal in the later years. It is the change of the open spase that has spatial meaning of not the compositional character in the space structure built in the traditional setting, but the mere residual spase left around a single building unit with the function of utility space at most.