Ito Chuta and the narrative structure of Chinese architectural history

Abstract

This article examines the intellectual and political environment that gave rise to the basic narrative structure in the writing of Chinese architectural history during the formative stage of the discipline through the career and works of the Japanese architectural scholar Ito Chuta (1867–1954). The author argues that the heavy emphasis on pre-Tang history in the early literature on Chinese architecture was a result of the power shift in late-nineteenth to early-twentieth-century East Asia, namely, the decline of China and the rise of Japan. By analysing the textual and visual information in Ito's major scholarly works, this article reveals the political agenda behind the methodological discrepancy between Shina kenchikushi and Shina kenchiku soshoku: the former is more historical and the latter is more anthropological, which echoes the cultural contradictions in Japanese colonialism, and shows how Ito's scholarships on Horyuji helped to identify such a shift in the mantle of East Asian tradition from ancient China to modern Japan.