Hozon

The architecture of Japan, both historic and contemporary, has attracted architects from all over the world since the early sixties. However, only recently has the Japanese approach to conservation emerged as an intriguing issue. For the first time, a Western publication attempts to portray the Japanese practice of repair—Hozon —of historic structures.

Siegfried RCT Enders and Niels Gutschow both studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt. Gutschow spent 1962/63 in Japan and returned in 1968 and 1971 to write a Ph. D. thesis about castle-towns. Enders followed in 1974 to study at Kyoto University and write a Ph. D. thesis about the development of Japanese residential buildings. From 1978 he has been a state conservation officer in Wiesbaden, Germany, while Gutschow works as a conservation architect and researcher in Nepal and India. In 1997 Edition Axel Menges published Gutschow's book The Nepalese Caitya - 1500 Years of Buddhist Votive Architecture in the Kathmandu Valley.