Change

Kyoto changes: Pachinko and Starbucks.

I think on what the architect Kisho Kurokawa says:

"The West seeks to hand down the actual physical original, while Japan hands down the ideas, aesthetic sensibility, spirit, and technique behind the physical work, according superior importance to the invisible tradition and making every effort to keep it alive. This Japanese attitude helps explain why we have been so quick to destroy elements of our built heritage and replace them with new structures. Of course, we Japanese need to reconsider this tendency, but on the other hand, the importance our culture places on the invisible creates significant opportunities for the transmission of traditional culture to contemporary lifestyle and architecture.

Much of what is most distinctively Japanese belongs to the categories of thought, philosophy, religion, manners, and sensibility. This forms an invisible spiritual tradition: the aesthetic of using materials in their natural state; minute attention to detail; the Buddhist idea that all living things possess the Buddha nature; the philosophy of Consciousness-Only, which resolves opposites in symbiotic relationships; a view of architecture and human beings as parts of the natural world; a curiosity that encourages the adoption of foreign cultures and new technologies; a concept of space as multivalent and ambivalent; a style of communication that values emotion as well as reason; and a high regard for intermediary zones and ambiguity."

Kisho Kurokawa "Each One a Hero: The Philosophy of Symbiosis" Kodansha International. 1997. Also available on his website.