ABSTRACT
A number of such projects marked the 1990s, with a few exceptional
examples built in Japan. The Universal CityWalk, Universal Studios’s
reconstruction of a problematic urban district in Osaka that opened
in 2001, in many ways marks a quantum leap in scale and complexity
of propast. It combines theme parks, hotels, office spaces, conference
centers, cinemas, theaters, retail shopping, restaurants, spas, and
many other programs in a planned total surface area of two million
square feet. The other two significant Japanese examples, both built
in the mid-1990s, are Canal City in Fukuoka and Festival Gate in
Osaka. Both of these projects mark attempts to solve deeply rooted
economic and socio-political conflicts in ‘problematic zones’ of both
cities by revitalizing them through the production of propast. Osaka’s
Festival Gate is an open-air, themed shopping mall inserted into the
existing, dense urban fabric. Accessibility and control issues are easily
resolved here: gates are large and obvious, and they are guarded by
a uniformed, private police force. Just like the Mall of America, West
Edmonton Mall or any similar venture, Festival Gate is a hybrid of
theme park, shopping mall, hotel, cinema, restaurant, wedding chapel,
a gigantic Japanese spa, and numerous other amenities that turn
this location into an urban resort. It is located in an area called Tennoji,
historically a ‘dangerous’ area of Osaka, where unemployment ran
unusually high for the Japanese standards, and where prostitution
and street fights were the norm. The area was densely built out of
cheap constructions and shanties, and mostly ruled by gangs (buraku-
min). It still bears many traces to its past. The construction of Festival
Gate, although meant to cover only a small portion of Tennoji, was
seen as a way to impose order and the rule of law on the entire area.
