Japan and the West ― An Architectural Dialogue

This book discusses the architectural influence that Japan and the West have had on each other during the last 150 years. While the recent histories of Western and Japanese architecture have been well recorded, they have rarely been interwoven. Based on extensive research, this book provides a synthetic overview that brings together the main themes of Japanese and Western architecture since 1850, showing that neither could exist in its present state without the other. It should be no surprise that the Bank of Japan in Tokyo is based upon the national banks in Brussels and London or that Le Corbusier’s cabanon at Cap Martin in the south of France is based upon an eight mat tatami room. In considering these histories, this book demonstrates the mutual interdependence of both architectural cultures while, at the same time, acknowledging their differences. In conclusion, the book moves beyond style and structure to the Japanese concept of ma—the pause or the space between, and demonstrates how this Zen Buddhist concept has found a place in Western architecture.

Neil Jackson is an architect and architectural historian and holds the Charles Reilly Chair in the School of Architecture, University of Liverpool. He previously taught at the Universities of Leeds and Nottingham and at the California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, California. He is currently a Professorial Research Associate in the Japanese Research Centre at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London, and he is President of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. He has published widely on nineteenth- and twentieth-century architecture in Britain, America, and Japan.