In Japan, where the "unfolding of a route", consecrated in the idea of michiyuki ,

is so strongly imprinted on spatial culture, the selection of Tokyo as home base,

and sharing the exploit, required a plan.

French architect and writer, Manuel Tardits, longtime resident of the Japanese

capital, has proceeded with characteristic rigor and élan:

Step One: An initial academic curiosity rules, in response to a new and different

way of thinking about the city itself. Great cities of both East and West have

always balanced master plans against a patchwork of districts exposing divers

styles and time frames. By contrast, Tokyo as other offers a palimpsest.

Step Two: Is it even possible to understand, the multitude of cultural bias

such a metropolis presents? Or will Tokyo remain, instead, like Loti's Madam

Chrysanthemum, a succession of incomprehensibilities: apparent shamelessness,

nakedness, a city of infinite patience and yet one of virtual pornography

and disorder?

Step Three: The anthropologist takes hold, a roving eye in the city, whose fundamental

aim is to study each subtle mechanism behind an urbanism so different

from our preconceptions. And to that end, he explores and is even willing

to lose his bearings.

Final Step: Tardits treasures the freshness of an initial and astonished

encounter with this overcrowded city. Stepping back, he plots for the reader

a persistent outline amid a myriad of ephemeral urban data - one endowed

with a new sense.

Tokyo: Portraits and Fictions is an exemplary guide to Tokyo, be it for the

amateur or the professional architect or planner. Manuel Tardits presents

the essential classic "takes", as well as up-to-the-minute developments. His

achievement is an unfolding of discoveries and surprises.