Constructing Japan

Knowledge Production and Identity Building in Late Nineteenth-Century Western Architectural Discourses (1853-1900)
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-04-70233-2
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 3, 594 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Loeffler, Beate

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Architektur: Allgemeines

Über Autor(innen)

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.