Japanese Creativity

What lies at the root of Japanese creativity and its architectural artifacts? In his book, the Japanese architect Yuichiro Edagawa explores this question in detail. By analyzing a wide variety of unique exemplary buildings from the sixth century to the present, he determines twelve distinctive characteristics of Japanese architectural creativity and composition, including: intimacy with nature, importance of materials, bipolarity and diversity, asymmetry, devotion to small space, and organic form. The key understanding, which pervades all these characteristics, is that parts precede the whole. The Japanese process of creation begins with designing parts and details and ends with combining them to one edifice, instead of starting with a whole structure and working out the components afterwards. Edagawa provides a personal and comprehensive understanding of Japanese creativity and the architectural process. The book gives us an inspiring insight into Japanese culture and identity, which in its essence is deeply traditional and modern at the same time.