The book is the first to explore the history and political significance of the Japanese public housing program. In the 1960s, as Japan's postwar economy boomed, architects and urban planners inspired equally by Western modernism and Soviet ideas of housing as a basic right created new cityscapes to house populations turned into refugees by the war. Over time, as Japan's society aged and the economy began to stagnate, these structures have become a burden on society. In this closely researched monograph on the conditions of Japanese housing, Tatiana Knoroz sheds unexpected light on the rise and fall of the idea of social democracy in Japan which will be of interest to historians, architects, and scholars of Asian economic modernization.

Explores the significance of Japan's public housing program Situates Japanese housing issues in the context of Soviet and Asian modernism Predicts the future of public housing in Japan

Autorentext

Tatiana Knoroz is a scholar with a special interest in Japanese housing, anthropology of lived space and built environment. She spent several years in Tokyo and Kyoto researching the history of Japanese architecture and social housing and collecting fieldwork materials for her danchi project.

Inhalt
Chapter 1. The Birth of the Concrete Box.- Chapter 2. The Refugees of the Lost Decades.- Chapter 3. Re-positioning Ethnography in Architecture.