The history of the people of the Japanese archipelago has been moulded by an idiosyncratic conservatism, admitting or even forcing change, but supplementing rather than supplanting existing institutions. The same characteristics have shaped the development of architecture with foreign influences and forms, principally from China, absorbed and gradually transformed. This long tradition of transformation is the subject of Japan: the informal contained. The Japanese are the masters of the assymetrical and the direct ...
Read More
The history of the people of the Japanese archipelago has been moulded by an idiosyncratic conservatism, admitting or even forcing change, but supplementing rather than supplanting existing institutions. The same characteristics have shaped the development of architecture with foreign influences and forms, principally from China, absorbed and gradually transformed. This long tradition of transformation is the subject of Japan: the informal contained. The Japanese are the masters of the assymetrical and the direct relationship between building and nature. The former can be seen in the contrast between the first imperial cities, laid out on a formal grid under the influence of Tang China, and the organic growth of towns in and around the precincts of forts and castles as foreign influence receded. As Chinese influence waned and ritual was elaborated, moreover, the native prediliction for informality and studied simplicity achieved its full expression in both shrine and house. Zen Buddhism, introduced during a period of military rule in the thirteenth century, also lead to the development of garden design, not a literal reproduction of nature, but abstraction calculated to elicit a subjective response.
Read Less
