PROTO-ARCHITECTURE

Yokohama Station

“Yokohama Station (横浜駅, yokohama-eki?) is a main interchange station located in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. It is the busiest station in Kanagawa Prefecture and the 5th busiest in Japan as of 2004, serving 2.05 million passengers daily.”1

Yokohama itself is a very dense mento area full of shopping and heavily populated.  Yokohama Station is a huge transfer point and being located south of Tokyo it was a central spring point for me to access both the Aodobai and Ryukentoshi Stations.  It hit it fairly early in the morning, just a little after rush hour, and activity had largely died down.  I really hadn’t intended to research this station, but at time allowed, and it was en route to my subsequent destinations, I explored the station and surrounding area.

Ryukentoshi Station

The Ryukentoshi Station is a rail station located in Yokohama where the architect Riken Yamamoto engaged in his Inter-Junction City project. For Yamamoto, the urban response was to connect various functions with individual buildings each manifesting their own urbanity. It is the linking together of the individual urbanities that create a communal interface.  I wanted to research the station partly because of the mixed-use project, partly to see a smalled station that was more of the scale that the average Japanese might use in their daily lives.  It was also at a density that was far closer to what one might encounted in the States.

Aobodai Station

This Aobodai station is one of the busiest in the Denen Toshi line, owned by the Tokyu Corporation. The station is flanked by a compact, mixed-use urban center featuring a shoping plaza anchored by a Tokyu department store, a large supermarket, mid-rise offi ces, a hotel, banks, post offi ces, and recreational offerings including sport clubs.  A higher density than the Ryukentoshi Station (located on a JR rail line), Aobodai is a complete development by the Tokyu Corporation who owns the line, must of the retail, and even many of the stores.