Japanese Modern Architecture
Monday: 1:10 – 4:25
Instructor: Benoit Jacquet benoit.jacquet@efeo.net
This seminar is an introduction to Japanese architecture through the prism of thehistory and theory of architecture in Japan. The objective is to provide acomprehensive understanding of “what is Japanese architecture?” Apart from theexisting literature and the present-day knowledge on the field of Japanesearchitecture, the presence of architectural heritage in Japan and in Kyoto city inparticular is also a valuable way to discover Japanese architecture “on site”. The topicof this seminar is to understand the synchronicity of both contemporary and ancientarchitecture in the XXIst century, and the importance of being immersed in thishuman-made heritage. The formation and the production of Japanese modern
architecture is the result of a historical process, and interpretations of the past, whichhave adapted to the contemporary milieu, and physical, social and mentalpossibilities. Thus, this seminar will alternate a theoretical approach, through onclass seminar presentations, and “fieldwork”, as active on-site visits of architecturalworks.
Learning outcomes:•Understand what an architectural heritage is, and the importance ofpreservation of material and immaterial assets.

•Recognize the various styles, specific architects, dates, and locations ofimportant buildings.

•Understand the climatic, technological, socioeconomic, and cultural factorsthat have shaped the architecture.

•Learn to create an architectural analysis of a building, through its structural,spatial and socioeconomic aspects, in order to produce a building/architectural
diagnostic.

Class schedule (TBC):

1- Introduction: The Plan/City (Kyoto). Visit to Kyoto City Planning office.
2- The Hut/Townhouse (machiya). Visit to Hatake machiya.
3- The Warehouse/Shrine (kura/jinja). Visit to a Shintō shrine.
4- The Monastery/Monument (garan). Visit to a Buddhist monastery.
5- The teahouse and Zen culture. Visit to Daitokuji, Kōtōin teahouse.
6- Domestic architecture: Shinden/Shoin/Sukiya style/New Sukiya style. Visit toa Murano Togo building
7- The modern wooden architecture. Visit to Neeshima house.
8- The development of modern architecture. Visit to Okazaki, Kyoto Rohm
Theater (Maekawa Kunio) and Itō Chūta architecture in Kyoto
9- Post war architecture and Metabolism. Visit to Kyoto Kokusai Kaikan
10-1980-1990s architecture. Visit to Takamatsu Shin office
11-2000s architecture. Visit of SANAA Nishinoyama house
12-Recent buildings in Japan. Visit to Naitō Hiroshi Toraya and Kyūkyōdō.
13-End of seminar student presentations.

Primary Texts
Benoît Jacquet, Teruaki Matsuzaki, Manuel Tardits, The Carpenter and theArchitect: A History of Wood Construction in Japan (Lausanne: EPFL Press, 2021).
Benoît Jacquet, Jeremie Souteyrat, The Architecture of the Future in Japan: Utopiaand Metabolism (Poitiers: Le Lézard Noir, 2020).
Recommended TextsThomas Daniell, After the Crash: Architecture in Post-Bubble Japan (New York:Princeton Architectural Press, 2008)
Thomas Daniell, An Anatomy of Influence (London: AA Publications, 2018).
Fujimori Terunobu, Japan in Architecture: Genealogies of its Transformation(Tokyo: Kenchiku Shiryo Kenkyu-sha, 2019).
Fujimori Terunobu, et al., The Contemporary Teahouse: Japan’s Top Architects
Redefine a Tradition (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2007).

Igarashi Tarō, Contemporary Japanese Architects: Profiles in Design, trans. David
Noble (Tokyo: JPIC, 2018).
Isozaki Arata, Japan-ness in Architecture, trans. David Stewart (Cambridge: MITPress, 2003).
Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Project Japan: Metabolism Talks... (Cologne:Taschen, 2011).
Onishi Maki, Hyakuda Yuki, onishimaki + hyakudayuki architects / o+h / 8 stories(Tokyo: LIXIL Publishing, 2014).
Jonathan Reynolds, Maekawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist

Architecture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
Matthew Stavros, Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan’s Premodern Capital (Honolulu:University of Hawai'i Press, 2014).
David B. Stewart, The Making of a Modern Japanese Architecture (New York, NY:Kodansha International, 2003).
Tange Kenzō, Ishimoto Yasuhiro, Walter Gropius, Katsura: Tradition and Creation inJapanese Architecture (Tokyo, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960).
Tange Kenzō, Kawazoe Noboru, Watanabe Yoshio, Ise: Prototype of JapaneseArchitecture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965).
Course Requirements
Attendance: Daily attendance is mandatory. NO make-up classes will be given. In theevent of illness or other absence, please notify your instructor or the office staff assoon as possible.
Homework: Consists primarily of readings or translations (approximately 20 pages
per week). Read the assigned readings by Monday of every week in order to be able todiscuss them in class.
Weekly Assignments: 12 x 5%= 60%.

Write short reports on the content of each lecture, using the template provided.
Submit by email in PDF format, one week after the relevant lecture.
Essay and Presentation: 40%
Write a 1000 to 2000-word illustrated essay about a building visited during thesemester. Submit by email in PDF format at the end of the semester.
Grading
A+ 95-100 A 85-94 A- 80-84 B+ 75-79 B 70-74 B- 65-69 C+ 60-64 C 55-59 D
50-54 F less than 50%
Policies
All work must be submitted on the scheduled dates. Unless prior permission has been
given, 5% will be deducted from the total mark for that assignment for every day it islate. Assignments submitted more than one week late without prior approval will
receive a mark of zero.
Academic Integrity
As members of an academic community, each one of us bears the responsibility toparticipate in scholarly discourse and research in a manner characterized byintellectual honesty and scholarly integrity. Collaborative scholarship requires thestudy of other scholars' work, the free discussion of such work, and the explicit
acknowledgement of those ideas in any work that inform our own.
This exchange of ideas relies upon a mutual trust that sources, opinions, facts, andinsights will be properly noted and carefully credited. In practical terms, this means
that, as students, all work submitted in this course, whether in draft or final form,
must be your own. You must be responsible for the full citations of others' ideas in allof your research papers and projects; you must be scrupulously honest when taking
your examinations; you must always submit your own work and not that of anotherstudent, scholar, or internet agent. Any breach of this intellectual responsibility is abreach of faith with the rest of our academic community. It undermines our sharedintellectual culture, and it cannot be tolerated.

The use of ChatGPT or any other AI tools for course assignments (with the exceptionof artificial neural networks like DeepL for machine translations, duly cited as
instructed in pages 2-3) is tantamount to plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined as:•The use of the whole or part of a written work including the use of paragraphs
or sentences in essays or other assessable work which are neither enclosed inquotation marks nor otherwise properly acknowledged.

•The paraphrasing of another’s work without attribution.
To avoid plagiarism students should use the Chicago reference style:https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide2.html

In practical terms, this means that, as students, you must be responsible for the fullcitations of others' ideas in all of your research papers and projects; you must be
scrupulously honest when taking your examinations; you must always submit yourown work and not that of another student, scholar, or internet agent.
Any cases of plagiarism or cheating will be reported to Columbia Undergraduate
Global Engagement and the academic advisor at your home institution and are
subject to the code of academic conduct there. In such cases, your final grade will be
determined by your home institution and not by KCJS.
Any breach of this intellectual responsibility is a breach of faith with the rest of ouracademic community. It undermines our shared intellectual culture, and it cannot betolerated.
If you are a student with a disability and have a Disability Services-certified‘Accommodation Letter’ from your home institution, please send me this letter before
the first day of class to confirm your accommodation needs. If you believe that you
might have a disability that requires accommodation and do not have anaccommodations letter, you should contact the Center for Undergraduate Global
Engagement at Columbia University (uge@columbia.edu).
Specific aspects of the seminar:Although laptops are allowed in class for taking notes, we recommend that students
take handwritten notes. Cell phones must not be used during the seminar (in class),
and must be turned off or put on silent mode.