In Praise of Shadows (陰翳礼讃 In'ei Raisan) is an essay on Japanese aesthetics by the Japanese author and novelist Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. It was translated into English by the academic students of Japanese literature, Thomas Harper and Edward Seidensticker. A new translation by Gregory Starr was published in December 2017.
Biostratigraphy or paleontologic stratigraphy is based on fossil evidence in the rock layers. Strata from widespread locations containing the same fossil fauna and flora are said to be correlatable in time. Biologic stratigraphy was based on William Smith’s principle of faunal succession, which predated, and was one of the first and most powerful lines of evidence for, biological evolution. It provides strong evidence for the formation (speciation) and extinction of species. The geologic time scale was developed during the 19th century, based on the evidence of biologic stratigraphy and faunal succession. This timescale remained a relative scale until the development of radiometric dating, which gave it and the stratigraphy it was based on an absolute time framework, leading to the development of chronostratigraphy.
One important development is the Vail curve, which attempts to define a global historical sea-level curve according to inferences from worldwide stratigraphic patterns. Stratigraphy is also commonly used to delineate the nature and extent of hydrocarbon-bearing reservoir rocks, seals, and traps of petroleum geology.
Against the interests of political lobbies and privatecorporations critical young architects and designersdeveloped new theories and techniques, and strove tointroduce a completely new vision of, and approach tocity planning. They fought to modernize the shape andcontent of the modern city, giving birth to one of themost prolific periods of modern Japanese architecture.In this sense the transformation of Tokyo between1958 and 1961 became the first interesting example inAsia of a total renewal of current urban planning basedon the Western matrix, and witnessed the surge of anew methodological and aesthetic approach based onthe native culture.
Raffaele Pernice, The Transformation of Tokyo During the 1950s and Early 1960sProjects Between City Planning and Urban Utopia
one of the great cinematic cities
Tokyo is looked upon in awe by the rest of the world as the archetypal modern metropolis. Sprawling and chaotic, the city seethes with a boundless energy that its streets struggle to contain. To outsiders, it often appears alienating, perplexing and impenetrable. Its unique combination of exotic ‘otherness’ and technological progressiveness, and the overwhelming assault of neon lighting and tinny, otherworldly electronic street sounds make it appear, at times, completely divorced from nature.
As well as serving as an inspiring model of progress and mechanical efficiency, the city has provided fuel for numerous dystopian projections in international cinema, including the five-minute sequence of its concrete and chrome cityscape shot through the front windshield of a moving vehicle in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972) and its deployment as a template for the bleak Los Angeles of the future in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982). More recently, it’s been recreated as both hedonistic theme park and nightmarish dreamscape in works including Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003), The Grudge (2004), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) and Enter the Void (2009).
source: https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/10-great-films-set-tokyo
