The Role of Travel in the Formation of Japanese Modernism in Interwar Visual Art and Architecture

Čapková examines the role of travel and transnational exchange in shaping Japanese modernism in the Interwar years. While architecture in Japan is often cast as an autonomous, uniquely national tradition, its modernist forms emerged through encounters with Europe, from the Bauhaus to Josef Hoffmann&s;s Vienna circle. Figures such as Ueno Isaburō, Horiguchi Sutemi, and Kurata Chikatada reinterpreted ‘Japaneseness’ in dialogue with global modernist debates, creating hybrid forms that circulated internationally. By tracing these contact zones, the chapter highlights the enduring presence of foreign elements in Japanese architecture and their role in defining its modern identity.