Paper short abstract:

This presentation focuses on ruins, which became prevalent in early 21st century in Japan, and aims to reposition the activity of exploring these abandoned spaces as attaching alternative meanings to urban spaces by drawing on play and city theories to describe how ruins were actually explored.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation reframes the activity of exploring ruins, which became prevalent in early 21st century in Japan, as attaching alternative meanings to urban spaces. In Japan, while interest in ruins has been growing since the 1980s, it was limited to photographs of ruins that were considered visually appealing. In this presentation, we focus on "How to Exploring Ruins (Haikyo no Arukikata)" by Toru Kurihara, a 2002 guidebook with detailed information and pictures that familiarize people with these abandoned sites by listing modern ruins in Japan that can be visited. Notably, the book classifies ruins by the type of building, the number of years from which was abandoned, etc. Expanding on play theories of such as Huizinga and Roger Caillois and city theories from the 1950s-1980s, this presentation also describes how people explored ruins and how the activity represented their practices.