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

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.