Japan and the West: An Architectural Dialogue

While historically there has been an acknowledged exchange of ideas between Japanese and Western architects, so far, the only examinations of this exchange have been limited to detailed studies of a single architect and their influences, such as Frank Lloyd Wright. This book addresses, in four distinct parts, the architectural dialogue between Japan and the West from the opening up of Japan in the 1850s until the end of the C20. Beginning with a section on Japonisme in Europe and America in the C19 and the "giyofu" (fake Western) architecture of Japan, the book then looks at Modern architecture in Japan, Europe and America between the two World Wars. The third section explores Architecture in Japan from 1945 until the Osaka Expo of 1970 and finally, it concludes with a section on Internationalism in Japanese and Western architecture in the late C20. The book addresses both cultures equally, showing that there is much in Western architecture which has come from Japan and that, by drawing upon Western ideas, the architecture of Japan has in many ways come full circle. The book is both a synthesis of hitherto uncollected ideas and a development of familiar and less familiar themes, such as the importance of Japanese art and design to the High Victorian and Arts and Crafts movements, or the complex arguments around Tradition and Modernity in post-War Japanese architecture. The book does not provide a continuous historical narrative, but rather a series of discursive essays or case studies which could be individually read or taken together as part of the whole. It provides an analysis and interpretation which is both critical and explanatory and as a result serves two audiences who are largely unfamiliar with their common architectural ground.