ABSTRACT
Traditional Japanese architecture and its modern influence presents an intriguing conundrum:it is based on a design aesthetic that, until the 1850s, was basically unknown outside Japan because of the Sakoku, or “locked country” policy begun in 1633. Sakoku rigorously closed the country to all foreigners and therefore to Japan’s art and architecture, as well as to the subtle beauty of its landscape gardening, which was largely unknown to Europe and America. In 1853, Commodore Mathew Perry, acting on behalf of the US government, sailed his fleet of “black ships” into Edo (now Tokyo) harbor and forced Japan to open the country to foreigners and to trade. Interest in Japanese culture, architecture, and landscape design then became almost insatiable, particularly for early-twentieth-century architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruno Taut, and Walter Gropius. Over the next century, the influence of the Japanese arts on the West, particularly its architecture and garden design, was perhaps greater than that of any other.
