Paper short abstract:

Heritage, ecology, urban regeneration, Shikoku

Paper long abstract:

The notion of cultural heritage has certainly evolved since the enactment of the first preservation laws by the Meiji government. In the past decades, the responsibility of local institutions in the management of cultural properties has increased and the perseverance of Japanese diplomatic efforts has enhanced the global acknowledging of intangible cultural assets. Moreover, the uncertainties of an advanced ageing society together with the uneasiness generated by the vanishing of materiality in the ongoing digital revolution have triggered a re-examination of the idea of heritage. On top of that, the devastation of the March 2011 has shattered fundamental axioms of the Japanese society: a quick overview of the architectural press of the recent years or the scrutiny of the proposals for the Venice Biennale of Architecture at the Japanese pavilion, provide material evidences of the introspection being currently experienced by young architects. Renovation, regeneration and community binding are now widespread terms.

This paper aims to bring some light into this context by reflecting on recent efforts perpetrated by local communities along the course of the Hiji river in Ehime prefecture, a prosperous region during the outbreak of modernity in Japan, gradually languishing ever since. Acknowledging the supremacy of nature, Uchiko and Ozu are both in the process of shaping up urban and territorial strategies capable of offering answers to the challenges of the post-modernity. Intertwined by the river, the former, a pioneer in conservation campaigning, is carefully enlarging the scope of the transformations in order to integrate the surrounding environment to urban revitalization policies (moto: eco-town エコロジータウン), while the later, seat of the former feudal domain, is conscientiously elaborating a panoply of studies and regulations to bind together new with old areas, insisting on the importance of the re-appropriation of the past.

The analysis of such processes might provide keys as to how the Japanese society, at a vicinity level, is trying to defy and surmount the complexity of the current urban decaying on eccentric areas, away from the bustle of big urban entities.