Review of: R. D. McChesney, Four Central Asian Shrines: A Socio-Political History of Architecture, Boston, Mass. and Leiden: Brill, 2021), Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 81.2 (June 2022): 238-39. (original) (raw)

From Edo to Tokyo: Birth of a global capital

LMU Munich, Japan Center, 2019

Modern Tokyo with its hyperfunctional transportation, the endless desert of concrete and its more than western attire has its origin in the wilting beauty of this forgotten fragile urban space: Edo. This paper explores the transition between this fire and flood plagued Venice of the Far East that - a city of deadly Samurai and pleasant Geisha - to imperial Tokyo.

Nuclei of Change: Edo and Osaka’s Importance in the Economic Development of Tokugawa Japan

This historiographical study examines the legitimacy of the dominant understanding of economic development and urbanisation in Tokugawa Japan (1600-1868). As the first Asian country to industrialise, the economy of early modern Japan is of significant interest to historians and economists. Most historians see the early Tokugawa period as one of significant urban growth. This is contrasted with the late Tokugawa period, where it is argued that the urban sector was in decline and gave way to 'rural-centred growth'. This paper opposes the concept of urban decline, arguing that the ‘rural-centred growth’ thesis (first proposed by Thomas Smith) is compatible with a perspective that emphasises the development of Edo and Osaka’s roles and continuing importance within the Tokugawa economy. While production became more decentralised during the 18th and 19th centuries, Osaka, and in particular, Edo (modern Tokyo) became crucial consumption centres and their influence as distribution and cultural hubs increased. Undergraduate Long Essay (University of Manchester, 2015)

Painting the town red: The Akamon of the Kaga mansion and daimyō gateway architecture in Edo 1

2017

Built in 1827 to commemorate the marriage of the daimyō Maeda Nariyasu to a daughter of the shogun Tokugawa Ienari, the Akamon or 'Red Gateway' of the University of Tokyo, is generally claimed to be a unique gateway because of its distinctive colour and architectural style. This article uses an inter-disciplinary methodology, drawing on architectural history, law and art history, to refute this view of the Akamon. It analyses and accounts for the architectural form of the gateway and its ancillary guard houses (bansho) by examining Tokugawa bakufu architectural regulations (oboegaki) and the depiction of daimyō gateways in doro-e and ukiyo-e. It concludes that there were close similarities between the Akamon and the gateways of high ranking daimyō in Edo. This similarity includes the red paint, which, it turns out, was not limited to shogunal bridal gateways but was in more general use by daimyō for their own gateways by the end of the Edo period. Indeed, the Akamon was call...