「地下街主義」宣言のためのノート

高度経済成長期日本の過密の文化

抄録

Underground shopping areas are distinctive environments built in many of Japan’s major cities in the 1950’s and 1960’s. This article seeks to delineate the logic and principles underlying the spatial formations of those facilities. A model description can be found in Rem Koolhaas’ famous book, Delirious New York, in which he retroactively reconstructed ‘Manhattanism’ by focusing on how a set of systematic principles work within the seemingly chaotic conditions of skyscrapers. Such principles are derived from the ‘culture of congestion’ of Manhattan, which were also observable in Japanese urban conditions in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Following Koolhaas’ reconstruction, this article introduces the concept of ‘undergroundism’ and reconsiders Marc Augé’s concept of ‘non-place,’ which is widely referred to in the context of how globalization has transformed the urban space. The concept of ‘non-place’ is convincing when it describes the spatial quality of shopping malls, airports and motorways, which are all spaces dealing with the flow of people and things. However, the concept’s limitations are revealed when one considers how it relies on the narrative of globalization. It can be demonstrated that there were spaces before the age of globalization that shared qualities in common with those described by Augé as non- place; one of those is the Japanese underground shopping mall.

The first Japanese underground shopping facility was built in 1930. It is crucial to note that the facility was annexed to a subway station, which meant that it targeted the flow of people using the subway to attract potential customers. That fact captures the essence of the facility: namely, as an apparatus to transform the flow of traffic into one of consumption.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, when Japan experienced rapid economic growth, the underground shopping facility was incorporated into the basic scheme of urban redevelopment. During the days of urban redevelopment, major cities were suffering from the problem of congestion and permanent traffic jams. It was determined that the solution would be to develop underground spaces, which would not only realize the separation of pedestrians from vehicles, but also create an ideal vehicle-free shopping area in the city center. A paradigm was invented for that, enabling the scheme of building underground shopping facilities to spread rapidly throughout the country.

An analysis of the underground shopping facility identifies the following characteristics: that they 1)are parasitic, 2)multiply themselves, 3)are self-confined artificial spaces, 4)rely on the digital order of urban space, 5)are apparatuses for transforming flows and 6)are ruled by the principle of probability. Those are the principles that constitute undergroundism, which can suspend the narrative of globalization underpinning Augé’s use of the term of non-place. They also enable us to reconsider the continuity and transformation of non-place-like spaces within the history of urban space.