Christian Dimmer + Keigo Kobayashi

Privately Owned Public Space (POPS) presents a unique urban phenomenon, where private lands are dedicated as public realms. This arrangement allows property owners to develop beyond typical zoning allowances in exchange for offering accessible public spaces. However, the demarcation between public and private often remains blurred, leading to ambiguity in how these spaces function. Christian Dimmer and Keigo Kobayashi delve into this intricate dynamic, focusing on the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo. Their exploration challenges the dual nature of POPS, probing whether such spaces genuinely embody the spirit of publicness in urban societies.

 

Historically perceived as an edgier, less-central district of Tokyo, Ikebukuro is undergoing a transformation, curating new public spaces to shed its erstwhile image and bolster its appeal. With a rich tapestry of theaters, Dimmer and Kobayashi conceptualize these emerging spaces as actors on Ikebukuro's urban stage. Much like a thespian who oscillates between their onstage persona and their offstage self, these POPS in Ikebukuro echo the juxtaposition of public facades over private nuances.

 

Visitors are encouraged to engage with Ikebukuro's vibrant tableau, reconstructing its urban narrative, and to ponder upon the true essence of urban spaces. Through this, they can explore and reshape the character of a city's spaces, reevaluating the balance between private ownership and public utility.

 

- Christian Dimmer is an associate professor of Urban Studies at Waseda University’s School of International Liberal Studies. He graduated from the trans-disciplinary Spatial and Environmental Planning program of the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. Christian earned his Ph.D. from The University of Tokyo on the social production of public space ideas in Japanese urban planning. His research interests are the emergence of human-centered design theories and practices in architecture and planning, new urban commons, transition design, policy mobilities with a focus on co-housing, and Doughnut Economics.

Keigo Kobayashi graduated from the Department of Architecture at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, and completed a Master’s Degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, USA, in 2005. He was involved in numerous major projects at an architecture design firm called OMA in Rotterdam with Rem Koolhaas until 2012. Kobayashi’s recent works involve a wide variety of spatial designs such as buildings, furniture, and exhibition designs. He designed the 2014 Venice Biennale Japanese Pavilion Exhibition and Gordon Matta-Clark Exhibition in the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo in 2018.

 

Project Team: Abudjana Haider Elwaseela Babiker, Christy Elias, Misato Fujii, Sorami Ikoma, Owen Hendrik Law, Jun-Rong Lin, Ryuto Otsuka, Ha Eun Park, Yuri Park, Sachi Sawamura, Selenay Yakin