Local Area Republic
Riken Yamamoto Running around the World”
Written by Shuji Funo
Riken Yamamoto proposes the concept of the “Local Area Republic.” A literal translation would be a local “republic.” At the heart of this media outlet, City Beautiful, lies a fundamental question about the spatial organization of the world: what is a “region,” what is a “communi-ty,” and what is a “republic.”
The etymology of the English word “republic” goes back to the Latin res publica. res means “thing,” “matter,” or “issue.” publica means “public.” Simply put, a republic is a “thing,” “matter,” or “issue” without a “king.” As a political system, a republic is a system managed as public property, not as the private property of any one person, as opposed to a monarchy (monos (one) + archein (rule)). This contrasts “private rule (dominium)” with “public order (res publica).”
Riken Yamamoto argues that the translations of “republic” (ko = shared/communal), “wa = order/harmony,” and “koku = political community) have become established in modern times as an institutional concept premised on the “nation-state,” and therefore it would be better to translate it as “republic.” In his “Nation-State and City-State” (foreword to Urban Beauty, Issue 3), he discusses this is-sue, stating that the Greek polis or Roman civitas, as a civic community, play a key role in the res publica. When this binary relation-ship breaks down, power is privatized (tyran-ny) or empire (imperialism) occurs, and the
state becomes an apparatus of control. Since winning the Pritzker Prize in 2024, Riken Yamamoto’s global career has shown no signs of slowing down. In 2025, he will be receiving and giving a speech at the Crystal Awards at the World Economic Forum (Davos Confer-ence), and at the Abu Dhabi Festival in the United Arab Emirates. After receiving the award and giving a lecture at New York University Abu Dhabi, he traveled to Hungary, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Venezuela. He has also been invited to numerous lectures and symposiums in Japan, where he has continued to speak on the topic of “local area republics.” The ” Riken Yamamoto Exhibition: Community and Ar-chitecture” (July 19 – November 3) was also held at the Yokosuka Museum of Art.
In this issue, we follow Riken Yamamoto’s journey through 2025.
The year 2025 began with Donald Trump’s second inauguration as the 47th US president, and the world has been at the mercy of Amer-ica First, MAGA tariff offensives, and the in-ternational politics of real estate deals. It be-came clear that America First actually includes the domination of the Western Hemisphere with the repeated attacks on Venezuelan oil tankers, which took place on January 3, 2026. President Madura was ab-ducted and detained in a flash by a covert op-eration by the United States. World history is clearly undergoing a transformation. It is as if we are returning to the era of Western demar-cation (division of the world) and imperialism.
Riken Yamamoto first visited Venezuela in November 2024, having received advice from the Japanese ambassador to Venezuela about improving the environment in Caracas’s bar-rios. He walked through the barrios, dis-cussed the issue with Vice President Rodri-guez (current interim president), and interacted with the residents. Like the kam-pong in Indonesia and barangays in Philip-pines he had visited during his time there, the barrios had strong community organizations. In 2025, he flew to Venezuela four times: in February, July, September, and November. He developed plans for barrio revitalization, and on November 24-25, he attended the first World Barrio Symposium was held in 2017. Shortly afterward, President Madura was abducted and detained.
A battle between the “king” Donald Trump and the “local area republics,” with Riken Yamamoto unexpectedly standing at the fore-front.
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