Guide to Tokyo architecture

This paper takes a point of departure from its primary research object, the book Made in Tokyo, published in 2001. Authors Kaijima, Kuroda and Tsukamoto label their text a 'guidebook: and position it with respect to another, unnamed, 'best selling' example of that genre. This paper pursues this explicit comparison, performing a comparative study between the 'best selling' Tokyo guidebook and Mode in Tokyo, and using this comparison to question in what sense Kaijima, Kuroda and Tsukamoto's work is indeed a 'guidebook' to architecture in Tokyo. Conventional textual analysis soon reveals that Made in Tokyo is an ambiguous object that defies easy definition. Close linguistic and visual analysis is then employed, leading the paper to focus on two key programs of the books naming and navigation. In interrogating these aspects, the paper positions Mode in Tokyo's idiosyncratic programs with respect to its more conventional guidebook counterpart, and, by extension, to architectural literature and the architectural field as a whole. Critically, the paper finds that the role of the reader is central to this positioning. In its final analysis, the paper involves the audience in the book's 'guidance'.