After the previous post about the elephant paths i found that in Airootsare putting attention in other urban roads that also help to generate a spatial diversity in the city, to maintain a balance between the universal and the locality, between the spaces drawn by the plants in the oudoor walls of the small houses in Tokyo, and the ones reflected in the tall windows of the skyscrapers.

According to Kisho Kurokawa – a proponent of the metabolist architectural movement – “Western Culture…based on modernism, cannot be discussed without reference to its… [reliance on] dualism and binominal opposition … Dualism is the fundamental base of rationalism of the modern West. Spirit and form, freedom and necessity, good and evil, reaction and reform, art and science, intellect and emotion, humanity and nature, tradition and technology, capitalism and socialism, the individual and the whole (1998).

[...] from a local commercial lane to a tiny community pathway. A fractal pattern that repeats itself all over Tokyo. Photos taken in Ikebukuro, seconds away from 4 lanes roads and high rise buildings.

I can recognize this communal and urban roads in some villages in Spain, especially in the north. They separates caleyas, small houses and meadows. Paths that, being close to its entrance, seem to herald the transition to a new space. However it’s not easy to locate one of these paths in a large Spanish city comparable to Tokyo, but perhaps someone can provide some examples.

This post is also available in Spanish