Paper short abstract:

Up to the 1980s, postwar heritage preservation efforts in Japan mainly focussed on “traditional“ architecture. In the last decades, however, modern architecture has claimed more attention. Here, a new heritage narrative reinterprets the buildings as a sign of genuine Japanese modernity.

Paper long abstract:

# Preserving Modern Architecture in Japan

Up to the 1980s, postwar heritage preservation efforts in Japan mainly focussed on apparently “traditional“ architecture, such as temples, castles, and the ubiquitous minka in the countryside. The Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunkachō), in charge of heritage policies, promoted a narrative of the past that aligned well with the nihonjinron. In the last decades, however, modern architecture has claimed more attention. Due to the bubble economy in the 1980s, boosterism endangered many Meiji-, Taishō-, and Shōwa-era buildings. Historians of architecture and civil society groups opposed plans to tear down historic buildings such as Tokyo station and pushed the agency to reformulate its policies. Simultaneously, modern architecture garnered more interest in Western countries, too, thus stimulating the agency further to preserve modern architecture in its heritage programs. The agency began to catalog modern architecture, such as schools, office buildings, factories, bridges, canals, etc. In the next step, many of these edifices and structures received national heritage status.

At the same time, the narrative of heritage preservation started to shift. The agency, as well as local actors, increasingly stressed genuine Japanese roots of modernity. The newly emerging heritage narrative reinterpreted modern buildings as a signature for the Japanese ability not only to adapt to international standards but to creatively forge a contemporary style based on germs reaching back more profound than the Meiji Restoration and the rapid intensification of contact with the West. Thus, currently, “vernacular modernity” and “modern vernacularity” compete as readings of modern architectural heritage in Japan, as my quantitative data and qualitative case studies show.