This lecture (in English) will be held Wednesday, October 24 at 7:00 at Lakeland University in Shinjuku.



"Tokyo Roji - Alleyways between Conflict, Change and Cultural Innovation", presented by Dr. Heide Imai



If the streets of Tokyo could talk, what stories would they tell us? This talk will present the role and meaning of the roji in Tokyo and seeks to go behind the façade of the contemporary urban landscape to re- contextualise these forgotten yet necessary, marginal yet present places of everyday life. Marginalised through the emergence of new forms of housing and public spaces, re-appropriated by different fields, and re-invented by the contemporary urban design discourse, the social meaning attached to the roji is being re-interpreted by individuals, subcultures and new social movements. To portray the life cycle of an urban form being rediscovered, commodified and lost as physical space, the lecture will make use of historical references, urban narratives, graphic reinterpretations and exemplary study cases, to finally disclose questions of the roji's future, its new actors and its new possibilities, closing with a critical statement: extraordinary cities are made of ordinary places.


Dr. Heide Imai is Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies (GIS) at Hosei University and Research Associate at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. Licensed as an architect, her research, teaching and practice focus is urban resistance, resilience and the future of vernacular landscapes in global cities. Her recent publications include Tokyo Roji (Routledge, 2017) and Everyday Yokohama (Routledge, 2019).



For a map and directions to Lakeland's Shinjuku Campus, see our website:

http://luj.lakeland.edu/Campus-Life/lakeland-lectures



Lakeland Lectures are a forum for researchers, students and members of the public to discuss contemporary issues affecting Japan. Lakeland University has offered a U.S.-accredited liberal arts program in Tokyo since 1991. Lakeland's main campus is in Wisconsin, USA and was founded in 1862.