There are fewer contiguous architectural zones in Japan — areas where we can follow the accumulated contours of a set of perfectly integrated buildings — than there are in Europe. Instead, we must sample designs singly. But because of the very real singularity of the most accomplished works, this can be immensely rewarding.
Unlike authors who rhapsodize about Japan's supposed culture of nonwastage, the writers of this new work know all too well about profligacy — of wealth in "the hands of people who, after thousands of years of practising the virtues of frugality, now throw away things just as they start becoming unfashionable."
Much as we might decry the remorseless scrapping of buildings in Japan, the practice does provide opportunities not available to Western architects who must contend with complex heritage and zoning issues. The limitations of space can even be a gift of sorts, creating a working dynamic where ideas are stretched and squeezed into seemingly impossibly pinched allotments of land.