The Making of a Modern Japanese Architecture: 1868 To the Present - Hardcover

Stewart, David B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0870118447 ISBN 13: 9780870118449

Publisher: Kodansha USA Inc, 1988

Synopsis

Traces the development of Japanese architecture, looks at the influence of traditional styles, and discusses the interaction of technology and architecture

About this title

About the Author

David B. Stewart was born in Washington, D.C., and educated at the Universities of Pennsylvania and London. He has taught in Japan as Visiting Foreign Professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology since 1975. Before that, he was a member of the editorial staff of L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui, in Paris, and has also worked as archivist for an international agency with headquarters in Paris and Washington. He was trained as an architectural historian at the Courtauld Institute of the University of London by the late Professor Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, under whose supervision he earned his Ph.D.

Reviews

With its hundreds of plates and its reliance on primary sources, this sophisticated study defines what is essentially Japanese about modern Japanese architecture. Late 19th century Meiji banks and schools, reeking ornate orderliness, might have been at home in Victorian England. But Frank Lloyd Wright's rebuilding of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo presaged an influx of modernism. In the 1930s, the Imperial Crown style, a resuscitative orientalism, expressionism and rationalism all vied with one another. By the late '30s, the International Style had largely played itself out. Architects such as Kenzo Tange, Arata Isozaki and Kazuo Shinohara sought new ways to synthesize Japanese and Western elements. The challenge of designing small private dwellings and the Japanese concept of architectural space as a void that filters a building's environs receive special attention. Stewart also shows how Westerners like Wright and Le Corbusier borrowed from and, in turn, influenced Japanese design. Stewart teaches at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Kodansha USA Inc
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0870118447
• ISBN 13: 9780870118449
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304