Architecture of Japan – Meiji Period

by

Matthew Mullane

• LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190922467-0100

Introduction

The Meiji period (1868–1912) marks the beginning of Japan’s existence as a modern nation. Following increased pressure from Western powers and a violent civil war, the so-called Meiji Restoration reinstated the emperor system and established a powerful state apparatus. The Meiji state quickly instituted sweeping reforms, sending students to compulsory schooling, creating courts and legislatures, organizing armies, and encouraging the development of a capitalist economy. What we call “architecture” was a key part of this multifaceted state project. New schools, courthouses, banks, offices, hotels, palaces, factories, and much more were quickly built around the country to signal to citizens and to the world that Japan had moved beyond its former military rule. Architecture both facilitated modernization and provided a technical, historical, and philosophical means of exploring what a new Japan could and should be. In other words, architecture provided both means and meaning. Studying Meiji period architecture therefore offers a crucial perspective onto a momentous cultural and political transformation of world historical importance. The central question that propelled architectural discourse in Meiji Japan would have been familiar to any architect around the world in the nineteenth century: “in what style should we build?” Should architects represent the country’s new modernity with Western styles like Neoclassicism and Gothic revival or should they embrace older Japanese forms? What resulted from these debates was, in fact, a complicated mixture of import, revival, and invention. Guiding this mixing were the desires of the new Meiji emperor (the period’s namesake) and a dense imperial bureaucracy that wanted to project an image of Japan that was both internationally modern and uniquely Japanese. While carpenters and engineers devised new ways of building these structures, architecture historians endeavored to define the very idea of “Japanese architecture.” They studied old buildings, initiated preservation campaigns, and even traveled around Asia to delineate “Japanese” from “Asian” styles. Scholars began historicizing the Meiji period immediately after it ended in 1912. Japan’s unique imperial calendar prompted architects and historians to immediately look back on the previous period, and many agreed it marked the beginning of “modern” architecture in the country. Given its profound importance as an “origin,” the Meiji period has been continuously rehistoricized by interested parties. During wartime, it was celebrated as the dawning of a new civilization, but, following World War II, the significance of the Meiji period was confused and contested. Architecture historians in the 1950s and 1960s looked to a deeper prehistoric past to bracket the difficult confrontations with militarism and colonialism. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, scholars looked again to the Meiji period to answer how and why modern architecture and modern empire were intertwined. “Meiji architecture” continues to be rediscovered and reinvented by scholars today. Important new works have revealed the global contingencies of Meiji architecture beyond an “East/West” dichotomy, the deleterious environmental impact of Japanese architecture, and the key importance of colonialism in defining modern architecture.

General Overviews

The following books offer general overviews of Meiji period architecture. Though few English-language overviews are dedicated solely to Meiji period architecture (Finn 1995), there are many available in Japanese. In the 1980s and 1990s, two major multivolume accounts were published in Japanese (Muramatsu 1979–1982) (Fujimori 1993) that helped establish the field’s canonical themes and narratives. During this time, helpful visual overviews with extensive visual documentation like plan and elevation drawings were also published (Suzuki and Hatsuda 1992). Today, scholars and museums (Tsuchiya, et al. 2018) have turned their attention toward more critical issues, resulting in overviews with specific themes like preservation (Shimizu 2013), education (Tsunoda 2019), urbanism (Matsuyama 2019), and the prominence of state power in architectural practice (Hino 2021).

• Finn, Dallas. Meiji Revisited: The Sites of Victorian Japan. New York: Weatherhill, 1995.

  An early English-language history of Meiji period architecture compiled by one of the first specialists on the topic. Though the book includes some outdated vocabulary like “Victorian Japan,” it nonetheless provides a convenient visual compendium of the era’s architecture. Finn produced over 5,000 photographic slides documenting Meiji period architecture during her travels through Japan. This archive is now available at the Smithsonian Institution.

• Fujimori Terunobu. Nihon no kindai kenchiku. 2 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1993.

  A broad story of modern Japanese architecture from the nineteenth century to postwar economic growth. The author, Fujimori Terunobu, is known both for his unique architectural designs and many theoretical and methodological contributions to the discipline of Japanese architecture history. The first volume focuses on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it is notable for beginning its narrative prior to the Meiji Restoration (the so-called Bakumatsu period) in order to describe the contentious dynamics of transition and change.

• Hino Naohiko. Nihon kingendai kenchiku no rekishi. Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2021.

  Translated as: “History of modern and contemporary Japanese architecture: From the Meiji Restoration to the present.” A survey of modern Japanese architecture that foregrounds the continued influence of Meiji-era politics on the discipline. Unlike similar surveys that focus on a sequence of styles, this book segments modern Japanese history into “state” and “post-state” categories, focusing on the transition of power from the government to the market in shaping architectural practice.

• Matsuyama Megumi. Toshi kūkan no Meiji ishin: Edo kara Tōkyō no daitenkan. Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 2019.

  Translated as: “The urban space of the Meiji Restoration: The great transformation from Edo to Tokyo.” This book looks closely at period maps to understand the urban, architectural, and social changes involved in the expansion of Tokyo after the Meiji Restoration. The book is of particular importance for highlighting the role of capitalism, landlords, and social hierarchy as engines of urban change, aspects that are often overlooked in architectural scholarship focused on the dynamics of style.

• Muramatsu Tejirō, ed. Nihon no kenchiku Meiji Taishō Shōwa (Japanese Architecture of the Meiji, Taisho, and Shōwa Periods). 10 vols. Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1979–1982.

  An expansive ten-volume set covering Japanese architecture from the Meiji to Shōwa periods. The set established a new standard of architectural scholarship in the 1980s and has served as a starting point for new scholarship ever since. The first three volumes are of special relevance to those studying the Meiji period. Themes covered include the creation of “Western-style” architecture, the role of governmental administration, and the work of important individuals like Josiah Conder, Katayama Tōkuma, and Tatsuno Kingo.

• Shimizu Shigeatsu. Kenchiku hozon gainen no seiseishi. Tokyo: Chūō kōron bijutsu shuppansha, 2013.

  Translated as: “A history of the formation of architectural preservation as concept.” The definitive history of architectural preservation in Japan. In addition to introducing key preservation projects in the Meiji period, the author theorizes preservation within a constellation of contemporary influences like nationalism, tradition debates, and new photographic technologies.

• Sorensen, André. The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty-First Century. London: Routledge, 2002.

  An expansive history of Japanese urban planning told from the perspective of state officials. The book’s second chapter focuses explicitly on the Meiji period and elucidates how a strong centralized government implemented reforms influenced by both Western ideas and careful of maintaining existing neighborhoods. Given the focus on urbanism, the book does not pay much attention to specific buildings, but, nonetheless, it gives an important perspective on how new and old architecture fit into larger patterns of development.

• Suzuki Hiroyuki, and Hatsuda Tōru, eds. Zumen de miru toshi kenchiku no Meiji. Tokyo: Kashiwa shobō, 1992.

  Translated as: “A visual anthology to the urban architecture of the Meiji period.” A useful collection of over seven hundred architectural drawings documenting Meiji-era building. Case studies are organized by type and feature illuminating explanations. Given the difficulty of locating original documents for many Meiji-era buildings, the book is an indispensable resource.

• Tsuchiya Takahide, Maeda Naotake, Tokuyama Hirozaku, and Hirose Mami, eds. Kenchiku no Nihon ten: sono idenshi no motarasumono. Tokyo: Echelle-1, 2018.

  Translated as: “Japan in architecture—Genealogies of its transformation.” Catalogue published for a 2018 exhibition at the Mori Art Museum. The wide-ranging publication features Meiji-era architecture grouped with both premodern and contemporary architecture into thematic categories like “hybrid architecture” and “possibilities of wood.” The book is a good example of how the Meiji period is routinely revisited by curators, historians, and designers and revitalized for contemporary architectural discourse.

• Tsunoda Mayumi. Meijiki kenchikugakushi. Tokyo: Chūo kōron bijutsu shuppansha, 2019.

  Translated as: “A history of Meiji period architecture.” An extensive history of architectural education, design, and theory during the Meiji period. Tsunoda’s book offers the most complete account of what the country’s first architects actually learned by studying drawing pedagogy, the teaching styles of prominent teachers, and the impact of engineering and art on the young discipline.