ABSTRACT
The theme of amenity-mainly embodied as urban amenities-will probably remain as a major ideological trend of the present fin de siècle in Japan, together with post-modernism. Both trends have in common a hedonistic exaltation of the senses. This is quite extraneous to instrumental rationality (Zweckrational) and the teleology of profit, which have dominated the evolution of Japanese cities since the High Growth era.
