I don 't think that the middle class high rises in the 13th arrondissement of inner Paris are the best exemple to show suburban ghettoes.Originally Posted by zupermaus
Paris? Have you ever seen Rome? Rome is with doubt the most beautiful city in the World! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome - Take a look...Rome is better than Paris...I live there. Take a look here too: http://images.google.it/images?hl=it...-8&sa=N&tab=wi, bye!
Yep Rome is gorgeous but Venice for me really takes the cake in terms of beauty. This isnt about the beauty of the city tho' its about how a city is planned and works, or more interestingly doesnt work - historically, culturally, commercially. Some of the most interesting examples would be like Magnitogorsk in Russia, a VAST and (ugly) steelworks and Stalinist/neo-Renaissance city plonked on the side. Similarly LA, Edinburgh, Seoul etc would be fascinating studies.
Have to disagree with that i'm afraid (I know this is off the thread discussion).
There are too many beautiful cities in Europe to mention here, but in my opinion Salzburg in Austria has the edge on Rome:
Brugges, Belgium:
Prague, Czech republic:
Oxford, England:
Just a few of my favourites.
Yes Rome is beautiful, but not top of the list.
Last edited by Meerkat; April 1st, 2008 at 09:39 PM.
wow, what a fascinating and gorgeous thread, thanks so much to everyone who obviously worked so hard to make their case, I'm convinced! I'm on the next plane out of JFK for
^ for.....where?
ok here goes: Istanbul, the city on two continents. Population 12 million city, metro 18 million, three thousand years in the making.
The area of Constantinople below, lost in the rapidly expanding metropolis, some say soon to rival Tokyo in size:
In its long history, Istanbul served as the capital city of the Roman Empire (330-395), the Byzantine Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire
(1204-1261), the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922) and is now the largest city (though no longer capital) of the Republic of Turkey (1922-present).
Byzantion was established on the site of an ancient port settlement named Lygos, founded by Thracian tribes between the 13th and 11th centuries BC,
along with the neighbouring Semistra, but was colonised by the Geeks in 685 BC. After numerous sackings (the Romans in 196 AD, the Crusaders in
1261, the Ottomans in 1453), the modern city arose with the Ottoman Empire's conquest of the Greek city of Constantinople.
The Greek cathedral of Hagia Sophia, the worlds largest dome and church of its time
By then it had dwindled into a population of 30-40,000, but increased with its new title as capital of the Ottoman Empire. Captured POWS were freed into
the streets and 4000 families were relocated into the empty parts of the city by order of the Sultan whether they be Christian, Muslim or Jew. Thus a
unique and cosmopolitan society was created, and that lasted for the next 500 years. Construction started on a grand scale, the grand mosques, the
palaces, bazaars and official buildings, alongside a flourishing of the arts and culture.
The Islamic City:
The Grand mosques were built in every major neighbourhood, huge edifices designed to impress,
unlike traditional mosque design that valued simplicity and modesty:
When the Blue Mosque (2nd pic) was built with six minarets it offended the Islamic world. The Sultan, in appeasement,
funded the building of two extra minarets onto the Grand Mosque in Meccah so also it could have six.
the Islamic edifices
With the changing fashions of the day the Ottoman Empire could not help but be influenced by the conquered peoples of its empire, and vice versa. By
the 1870s much new architecture was in the Parisian styles of the heyday:
Following the destruction of numerous Turkish towns and cities by Greek troops in the War of Independence Istanbul suffered greatly in the
revenge attacks against the millennia old Greek community, the majority of them forced into exile to Greece. The culmination in the 1955 Istanbul
Pogrom left 4,000 shops, 70 churches, and 30 schools destroyed, while those responsible for the mob violence were left unpunished.
The creation of the Turkish state also saw a distinct change in style - European designs were abandoned in favour of re-Turkicising the city. Numerous
Turkish built and designed public buildings were destroyed for merely looking European, and -although strictly a secular state was replaced by Islamicised
effigies.
The labyrinthine Grand Bazaar sees crowds of up to 400,000 a day
However there are still thousands of survivors:
the architectural mix is on a par with London's
Even away from the central areas the buildings are still mixed and often pleasingly confused
Italianate
Spanish
French
Arabian
The traditional clapperboard housing of Istanbul saw in its heyday. Note the
fusion of styles, from the European roof to the Islamic onion dome, the European balconies and Middle Eastern screens.
Population change followed in the 1970s as the Anatolian rural migrants flooded into the cities.
Many illegal buildings were set up, leading to 65% of the city housing being unsafe,
especially in light of the 1999 earthquakes that killed 18,000.
There are 80,000 buildings the Turkish geological survey reccommend for demolition, that could collapse in Istanbul if it suffered a direct hit.
This midrise collapsed into a crowded street as the older building next door was being demolished:
Istanbul has been rocked by terrorist bombs of late, labelled
as coming from Al Kaeda, though it is nothing new from attacks
by Kurdish rebels for decades. This is the biggest threat to the
new wave of tourism heading its way and as its newfound position
on the modern day Grand Tour:
The population is still growing rapidly, with 11.4 million officially registered (and millions more unregistered).
Estimates at the metro population is near the 20 million mark. The city is growing by 3.5% per year and
still densifying despite growing suburbs, currently at an average 2,750 registered people per sq. mile.
As the city grows highrises sprout across it, away from the historic centre
the leafy expanding suburbs, including the Levant business district, a new satellite core,
and its rapidly expanding skyline. This is a city on the rise:
the Levant cluster 2010
OK, the result, the City Today
after all the feuding, destruction, building work, population exchanges and political upheavals:
As a heady mix between Paris, Damascus and San Fransisco (architecture aswell as outlook), East meets West, old meets new Newsweek in 2007 called
on Istanbul as the new 'world's coolest city' (last time it did this was London 1995) precisely for the juxtapositions found so few places elsewhere- girls
in miniskirts passing mosques, ancient teahouses next to gay bars, swimming in the sea next to the palaces. It also happens to be one of the friendliest
cities in the world.
In short Istanbul = zeitgeist. Its currently the world's best kept secret but not for long - tourism is expected to rise dramatically as the 'secret' gets out,
and foreign visitors will reach 10 million in the next 2 years alone, and rising. This is the result of decades of state and education secularism combined/
fighting with a strong religious and cultural identity. 98% of the Turkish are unified as Muslims but come from diverse backgrounds.
1.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
10.
14.
The forward thinking mayor is a trained modern architect but is busy restoring the old parts of the city. Narrow
alleyways now jostle for space, especially with the Turkish love of coffee. The pedestrianisation and restoration
of the centre continues at a breakneck pace:
Before:
After:
Many of the old alleys provide respite from the crowds, and seem awaiting for the pedestrianisation
and restoration, and the ubiquitous takeover of cafe life:
massive pedestrianisation
Before and After old buildings
alongside strengthening the illegal buildings of the 1970s
and undoing the mistakes. Istanbul is the only major city doing this:
before & after
Worthwhile 20th Century buildings are also renewed without discrimination:
at the end of the day all it takes is a coat of paint:
what a difference the removal of shop signs make:
The logical progression in pictures,
the main streets:
At the beginning of the 20th century.
50's: Street opened to cars
Some years later the nostalgic tram line doesn't exist anymore, the area getting more unattractive. Buildings full of signs.
After 90's until today:
Several renovations and restorations. The tram line is back and buildings are rented to high prices again.
This is what's best about the city, despite 18 million people there are so many respites of peace
The rich and upper middle classes live all along the gorgeous coastline
the urban coast is studded with vistas and inlets
whilst the middle classes and poor live in midrise districts both old and new:
but in areas much more vibrant:
Public transport is well run and extensive enough, but crowded and still giving way to the car. It is outdated
in both a good as well as bad way:
There is a burgeoning art scene, and much tradition of political protest. Istanbul is currently a place
fighting between a left wing city and a right wing economy and countryside. This makes for great
frisson, and part of the reason why only now is it so 'cool':
Last edited by zupermaus; April 29th, 2008 at 01:05 PM.
Obviously; the destination endorsed by the poster that presented the most compelling case.
ok next stop coming soon on the armchair tour
: Barcelona
or Tokyo
Last edited by zupermaus; April 4th, 2008 at 07:14 AM.
^ Tokyo Zupermaus- please!
Always wanted to go but it's very expensive, maybe a couple of years.
Welcome to Tokyo
the worlds biggest city by far, 34 million strong in the contiguous area, 50 million by American CSA counts. SCROLL RIIIIGHT
yep, keeeep scrooolllinng
Tokyo has grown so large the govt is now levelling hills and mountains to accomodate it
(65% of Japan is forested, one of the highest percentages in the world) alongside huge
land reclamation from the sea. It is hemmed in on all sides and connected by strips of
urbanity to the other metropolises of Honshu.
reclaimed land:
Tokyo is a relatively young city by East Asian standards. As a small village the Shogun built Edo-Jo in 1453,
what would become the worlds largest castle. The city that sprang up would time and time again become
the worlds largest city, in different periods during the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries. Time and time
again this metropolis would be destroyed by fire and catastrophe, what would be dubbed the flowers of Edo.
In the 16th Century the rapidly growing city was split between the high town and low town, high for the court and rich
merchant classes, low for everyone else. The low town, Shitamachi crammed an incredible 182,000 people per square mile,
a city dwellers life there was bawdy and good natured though poor, but the vast pleasure districts came with the crime too,
from murder, drunkenness to common child prostitution, in contrast to the echelons of the higher town. The life span of a
building in Shitamachi averaged 20 years.
Edo-Jo, the largest defensive structure ever built
to appreciate the massive scale of the castle, made up of 5 concentric rings of defences,
designed to confuse and trap attackers, below is the modern day site of the
Imperial Palace. The castle once occupied the entire Imperial Park:
Tokyo the city shaped by disaster
Ok our study begins with a haunting story:
In 1654 a long sleeved kimono was made by a royal courtesan named Kiku Ueno, who had noticed a
young Samurai of remarkable beauty at a temple ceremony and been immediately enamoured.
Although she never saw him again she made a murasaki kimono for herself, echoing
the purple cloth and design he had been wearing. However she grew sick and died shortly after on
16th January 1655, and the kimono was uncharacteristically inherited by another courtesan,
the cloth being too good to be buried. She too died almost a year later, having spoken shortly
before of being haunted by a 'beautiful shadow'. She was cremated on 16th January 1656, and the
unlucky robe was sold to a pawnbrokers. However the teenage girl who worked there, seeing the
value of the cloth appropriated the piece herself,shortly after becoming a third 'victim' to die of sudden circumstance.
At the time the city was recovering from a drought but had been lashed by typhoon winds - fire bells rang almost
without pause. On 18th January 1657 the kimono was returned to Honmyōji temple, whereby the priest recognising
it a third time, burned it in exorcism. However a 'sudden wind' sprang up and started a fire that spread through the temple,
and overcoming the Hikeshi fire services.
This would forever be known as the Long Sleeves or Furisode Fire. The city burned for three days,
from the centre out to the outskirts, then back again. 300 palaces, 600 temples, 3000 shops
and businesses were destroyed, and over 100,000 killed. 44 sq km of the city was destroyed.
Only nine years later London would follow a similar fate.
The new city
Funds were distributed from the empire to both Samurai classes aswell as commoners, and the great mercantile
centre was restored. Roads were widened alongside the space between buildings, with a firewall of empty space
that seperated the court areas. Temples and palaces were rebuilt by the river, along with numerous crossings - the single bridge
before had proved catastrophic in the fire, a bottleneck where thousands died. The last building to be restored was the
empirical residence itself, Edo-Jo. By the early 18th Century it was the worlds largest city with well over a million
residents. However, one notable exception in the rebuild, in contrast to London, the city was still largely wooden.
In self imposed exile Japan had seen in a flowering of its arts and culture,
this was the period of the 'Floating World', a city of courtesans, labourers,
merchants, Samurai classes and geishas, the city divided between vast
court, mercantile, and entertainment districts.
Meiji Era Tokyo
In 1854 ominous 'black ships' appeared on the horizon in Tokyo harbour. This was the
fleet of American Commodore Perry, breaking hundreds of years of Japanese isolationism.
This was a seminal event in modern Japanese history.
The new Meiji Restoration, having wrestled back control from the Samurai classes, decided
to set up trade with these new peoples, rapidly adopting much Western technology and
fashions alongside a continuation of its traditional culture, that traded woodprints and
arts (the initially inferior 'Japonisme' that would influence the 19th Century art and impressionist
movements back in Europe) in return for an industrial revolution, the worlds fastest yet achieved.
"Nothing cheers a builder like a natural disaster"
On 11:58 am, September 1st 1923, American visitors on a swaying jetty in Yokohama
noticed a strange cloud on the horizon, moving from east to west along the waterfront,
and soon enveloping the whole view in silence. What they were seeing was the dust cloud
sprung up by the collapse of thousands of buildings.
As lunch had been prepared by families across the
city, toppled stoves ignited hundreds of fires in the debris. Meanwhile the great bay swept away
leaving fish stranded to the horizon. It would come roaring back later in the form of a massive tsunami.
The Great Kwanto Quake destroyed old Edo by fire and water and killed
140,000. To this day it is the worlds most destructive and costliest disaster.
Most notable were the deadly firestorms that raged across the city, whirlwinds of fire sucking in buildings and people into a vortex, a
phenomenon seen in earlier conflagrations.
The National Museum and castle was annihilated, taking with them thousands of years worth
of priceless artefacts and works of art. This was the greatest loss of heritage outside China.
A new slate
The city was rebuilt on vast and impressive scale. If it had survived it would have been the worlds greatest
collection of art deco. In a matter of years it was set to overtake London to be the worlds largest city, but
was in turn usurped by NYC in its heyday:
The art deco city destroyed 1945, the worst of the flowers of Edo:
Not many people know this but Tokyo suffered twice the damage of Hiroshima. This was the main reason
why it wasn't picked as an atom bomb site - it had already been destroyed in the worlds largest and deadliest bombing raids.
In one night alone 80,000 people died in dense firebombing, with 200,000 civilians killed in total for the war.
The clean up was grisly, thousands of immolated bodies and charred skeletons littered
the streets, thousands more lining the Sumida river as those who sought shelter were
drowned or boiled. Military documentation to this day is too macabre to publish -
in one park the remains of an estimated 8000 people created a gruesome pyramid, the
result of a firestorm striking a crowd.
The modern city rises once more.
The 1964 Olympics marked the entrance of Japan back onto the world stage
after the trauma of war and rebuilding:
The modern international style fitted perfectly in with Japanese mentality,
especially having been sourced from the 16th Century Katsura Palace by early modernist
studies and theorists such as Le Courbousier. Instead of a royal residence of lavishness
and ostentation, the queen chose one designed on sartori and zen principles.
Modernism was functional, clean, simplistic and perfect for rebuilding a nation.
The International style in the West looked modern, in Japan it looked ascetic
with traditional undertones.
The metropolis had become the worlds largest by 1968. During the 1980s Tokyo also became
the worlds richest and most expensive city, a title it still holds today with an estimated $1300 billion economy.
Tokyo has twice the amount of people in NYC in the same area, despite the shorter buildings.
The building codes of course protect against earthquake damage, with strict height restrictions.
Thus the limits of skyscrapers are often 600-850ft, with only a handful taller. However as the huge
business sector demands, the multinationals (the highest number of HQ in the world) need to fit in
larger floorplates than that allows. The result are huge squat looking skyscrapers, sometimes breaking
up their mass by twin or multiple towers. In NYC or Hong Kong the buildings would be half the width
and double the height. Tokyo has the worlds largest buildings by average floorspace, no 1 in the world,
but is only 5th in terms of skyscraper heights.
Believe it or not the Ropponggi Hills tower and arts complex has the same floorspace
as the Sears Tower,and may be the worlds biggest tourist attraction, accommodating
a million visitors on a weekend day.
The vast city is broken up into a chequerboard of different massings of buildings:
numerous skyscraper clusters:
midrise districts:
and myriad lower, denser neighbourhoods, often without street names or numbers.
These areas are the bane of taxi drivers and postal workers.
these in turn hold the most surprising thing about Tokyo,
thousands of traditional wooden houses, marking also
a trend from the 1990s to rebuild in this style:
these districts also hide thousands of self designed, detached homes
this is the start of a city finally constructing lasting buildings, not the temporary
haberdash of centuries of destruction:
Omotesando stores:
reemergence of civic pride
How does a city of 35 million transport its people? With the worlds largest
metropolitan mass transit system. The subway lines carry 7.8 million passengers
daily, yet only account for 282 out of 1558 rail stations.
Shinjuku station averages 3.22 million people a day, Ikebukuro 2.7 million,
Shibuya 2.4 million
And in all the vastness of the city lie numerous parks and oases of calm.
There are two things one must do in Tokyo, pick a direction and get lost,
and secondly if you see a park, visit it:
The worlds greatest city?
Culturally Tokyo is a behemoth, a truly global city. It has more businesses, shops, bars,
restaurants, clubs and museums than anywhere on the planet. And by far, for example:
NYC 5 boroughs counts 1000 bars, Tokyo counts 27,00 karaoke bars alone (and nearly
100,000 drinking establishments in total). London counts 15,000 restaurants, Tokyo
200,000. Paris counts 94 Michelin stars for its food, the world leader by far. When Michelin
finally rated Tokyo in 2007 they counted 191 stars, whilst receiving criticism so many places were left out.
The legacy of the vast entertainment districts of old Edo, lives strong
The business districts count the largest numbers of Global HQs, trade the most money
and retain the largest business economy in the world, despite a ten year slump (ending in 2005).
However what Tokyo distinctly lacks, through no fault of its own, is the physical history.
Even the Imperial Palace, built on the ruins of Edo-Jo after the war, has concrete walls:
However intimate scaled streets and wooden buildings survive in the backstreets,
alongside a strong continuation of traditional arts and culture, from Kabuki theatre
to Sumo and traditional arts taught at schools, from kendo to ikebana flower arranging:
shinto wedding,
sumo, kabuki
The other thing Tokyo lacks is diversity, in contrast with other Asian cities. As of 2005, the five most common foreign nationalities found in Tokyo were
the Chinese (123,661), Korean (106,697), Filipino (31,077), American (18,848) and British (7,696). The only other major cities on the continent with so
few minorities are Seoul and Pyongyang.
Yokohama Chinatown
Of course old traditions continue alongside a flowering of contemporary Japan.
The teenage fashions are the most bizarre and daring in the world, this is
the place of inspiration for the bigshot designers, the cos-play streetwear
of troubled teenagers coming out before the catwalks of Milan and Paris.
In the 1980s the style was rockabilly Americana, the 1990s was Victoriana
and uber-California, the 2000s sees traditional Japanese with cyber
twists, and serious 80s retro.
The 1990s freakshow,
bear in mind these styles are seriously dated on the Tokyo 'scene'
Kalifornia vs Gothic Lolita. IN a city of 35 million with strict social traditions,
the obvious nature of teen life away from the cookie cutter sacrifices for low
crime rates coupled with a strong economy, was the urban tribes. There were hundreds,
more so than any other city, from cybergoths to punks to suntan girls, to die hard hippies
and manga wannabes to urban samurai to surfers to skaters to rockabillies to glam rockers.
Its back to the Nineties!
and verging on art -people wrapped up in tubes/carboard boxes/sheets, slasher victims, dolls, robots.
As far as the traditionally bullied teenagers of the world go, Tokyo definitely leads over the next great
pretender here, London.
although the 2000s have seen in much more wearable and toned down styles,
heaven forbid, even understated...
...despite the 80s retro
of the myriad urban tribes of the 90s, punk has survived longest, it is huge
Like San Fransisco, Tokyo is currently overdue by 8 years for its Big One
earthquake, a once in 80 year cycle. The next flower of Edo would probably kill more than 5,600 people and injure almost
160,000 according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Govt. Official estimates of economic damage have topped more than $1 trillion.
Last edited by zupermaus; April 25th, 2008 at 07:37 AM.
ok Tokyo done! Ive updated London, Paris, Istanbul too - do check em out again.
Last edited by zupermaus; April 24th, 2008 at 01:16 PM.
Hong Kong next?
or Shanghai
zupermaus...you are fantastic. What an incredible tour, thank you for your consistently outstanding presentations!!
Tokyo is fascinating - it's on my list of places to go. The picture of Mt Fuji in the background is amazing.
Hong Kong next!
And how about somewhere very unusual, like Nuuk in Greenland, or Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands.
Last edited by Meerkat; April 7th, 2008 at 11:44 PM.
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