Changing Interpretations of Otherness in English-Language Accounts of Japanese Architecture

Abstract

This paper surveys foreign accounts of Japanese architecture published in English from the reopening of Japan in the 1850s up to the year 2000. It shows how European and American perceptions of Japanese buildings evolved from initial dismissal, through acknowledgments of merit, to positive admiration in less than fifty years. It is suggested that the consistent thread running through these shifting interpretations was an assumption of the inherent otherness of Japanese architecture, but that the nature of this perceived difference has frequently been adjusted to fit changing international architectural agendas.