Japanese Architect Itō Chūta's Travel in the Ottoman Lands

chapter 11 Tracing Origins Along the Silk Road: Japanese Architect Itō Chūta’s Travel in the Ottoman Lands

Miyuki Aoki Girardelli

The first Japanese architectural historian Itō Chūta (1867–1954), noted for his introduction of the Western concept of architecture in Japan, traveled throughout the Ottoman Lands for eight and a half months during his world trip of 1902–05. His search for the origins of the entasis and karakusa (honey- suckle motifs) observed in the columns of the 7th century Japanese Buddhist temple, Hōryūji, was a part of the efforts of Meiji Japan to establish a certain status for Japanese architecture in a Euro-centric architectural discourse. In this paper, I will discuss Chūta’s struggle for constructing a critical notion of “Eastern architecture” in Japanese architectural discourse by focusing on his experiences in the Ottoman Empire. Born in 1867 in Yonezawa, Itō Chūta was trained at Tokyo Imperial University as an architect. Besides his designs of numerous buildings including Tsukiji Hongan-ji Buddhist Temple (1934), Meiji Jingū Shinto Shrine in Tokyo (1920), Heian Jingū Shintor Shrine in Kyoto (1895), Yushima Seidō Confucius Shrine (1934), Ōkura Shūkokan Museum (1927), and Kanematsu Auditorium at Hitotsubashi University (1927) he became a leading scholar of Japanese architectural history with his “法隆寺建築論” (A Treatise on the Architecture of Hōryūji Temple) published in 1893 and followed by his discovery of Yungang Temple in 1902 during his travel in Shanxi province which was one of the major grottoes of Buddhist sculpture and temples of the Northern Wei dy- nasty (386–534). In his treatise, Itō proposed the possible influence of Greek architecture on Hōryūji, a masterpiece of Japanese architecture from the 7th century.1 Itō’s ground for this argument was the entasis observed in the columns of the Middle Gate of Hōryūji Temple (Fig. 11.1) and the proportional similarity between Hōryūji and Etruscan temples. (Fig. 11.2) According to his argument, Itō stressed that entasis, the slight swellings at 1/3 of the column

1 Itō Chūta 伊東忠太, “Hōryūji kenchikuron” 法隆寺建築論 (The thesis on the architecture of the Hōryūji) Kenchiku zasshi, 建築雑誌 (Journal of Architecture and Building Science 1893, November): 330–331. Reprint Itō Chūta 伊東忠太, “Hōryūji kenchikuron” 法隆寺建築論 Tōkyō teikokudaigaku kiyō 東京帝国大学紀要, Dai 1 satsu Dai 1 go (1898): 56.

Figure 11.1 Columns with entasis, Hōryū-ji Temple. photographed by the author.

of Greek architecture, has gradually expanded to the East via India, the heart- land of Buddhism, where the traces of Hellenistic influence on the heritage of Gandhara had already been tracked to some extent by British scholars such as James Fergusson (1808–1886) and Sir Banister Fletcher (father: 1833–1899, son: 1866–1953). (Fig. 11.3) The idea of connecting the origins of Japanese architecture to ancient Greece, regarded as the apex of the hierarchical system of classical Western architecture, would secure automatically a higher rank in the Western system. The thesis was also Itō’s personal challenge to the marginality of Japanese architecture in the world architectural culture typically represented by James Fergusson’s comment in his “History of Indian and Eastern Architecture” published in 1891 stating that Japan lacked permanent buildings, a sense of mag- nificence and a connection with the building race of mankind.2 In his thesis on Hōryūji, Itō tried to reject this kind of preconception of Japanese architecture by using the Western paradigm of classical architecture itself to prove the orthodoxy and priority of Japanese architecture according

2 Banister Fletcher, A History of Architecture (London: B.T. Batsford 1905).