This is where I think in public — about urbanism, political economy, and often just the view from wherever I happen to be standing. New here? The reading guides below are the best way in. Otherwise, scroll down for the latest blog posts.
Latest posts
The second presentation I gave during the “Inheriting the City” conference in Taipei last week was on Tokyo. As with the one on Yangon, I am still debating whether I should write it up as a full-blown paper. In order not to forget what I said, herewith a summary.
Economic Miracle from Ben Bansal on Vimeo.
One of the two presentations I gave on the occasion of the “Inheriting the City” conference in Taipei last week was on Yangon’s heritage discourse. While I am still debating whether to write it up into a full-blown paper, herewith a brief summary for the records.
Tripitaka Library
Tokyo’s urban manufacturing economy is legendary. Today I visited its epicentre in Ota-ku, the capital’s southernmost ward to get a feel for what could be an interesting avenue for my research.
I walked past Azuma’s Tower House again yesterday. This amazingly small 50-year-old brick block in Gaien-Mae is perhaps the first in a long tradition of extremely small residential buildings in Tokyo. And while the architecture of scarcity brings about unprecedented creativity, it is also a reminder of what is wrong modern (real estate) capitalism.
Where is the SAAB?
As a follow-up to my post on Yangon’s slums, more browsing reveals the existence of an interesting UN Habitat project. It is called Mapping Yangon. The little information that is available about it confirms some of my earlier suspicions about the state of these informal settlements in Burma’s former capital.
House on stilts, Dala (c) Manuel Oka
Our Yangon Architectural Guide features six thematic chapters on various topics to do with the built environment. Upon reflection and with some time passing since we worked on the manuscript, there could definitely be a few more, in particular one on slums.
Man in Dala – not your typical slum (yet?) — (c) Manuel Oka
It’s been a few months since I moved to Tokyo. My initial ideas regarding my PhD have matured a little bit, although of course things are still in flux. Meanwhile, this blog has been a little dormant. Perhaps I can bring it back to life with some academia related sorting of thoughts!
Yanaka, Tokyo
I’m back from Yangon, where together with my co-authors I launched the Architectural Guide Yangon at the Goethe-Institut Myanmar. A quick summary of the event after the jump.
While on our brief stopover in Germany this September, my parents took us for a ride to Weimar and Dessau. I had never been before, and it was great to see and stay in the Bauhaus. Some photos and impressions after the jump.
The Bauhaus main building in Dessau (some photos taken by my mother)
In his last column as the FT’s Asia Editor, David Pilling celebrates the rise of China. The parallels to Japan’s meteoric ascent — until the bursting of the bubble in 1990 — are worth spelling out, for they are often confused and conflated.
Misguided optimism?