Constructing Japan: Knowledge Production and Identity Building in Late Nineteenth-Century Western Architectural Discourses (1853-1900) (Brill Studies in Architectural and Urban History)

The influence of Japanese art and culture on art in late 19th-century Europe and America through collections of objects and knowledge transfer is already recognised. However, the research in this field often neglects architecture. This study takes a new approach, placing architecture at the centre.
Through in-depth analysis of contemporary textual and visual sources, Beate Löffler shows how western actors from different backgrounds interpreted Japanese architecture as they experienced it, either face-to-face or via texts and images. It unveils a complex process of appropriation and rejection, of claim to interpretive sovereignty, and fascination with the foreign, that led to both new knowledge and cultural clichés.

Beate Löffler, senior lecturer (TU Dortmund University), is an architect, historian and art historian with a focus on architectural knowledge transfer, particularly between Japan and Euro-America. Her publications also deal with religious topography, epistemic systems of building and digital humanities.