| dc.description.abstract | ABSTRACT:
THE JAPAN-WAVE: PERCEPTIONS OF JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE IN NORWEGIAN ARCHITECTURE DISCOURSE, 1955-65.
This thesis examines how the Norwegian architecture discurse, in the years 1955-65, perceived Japanese architecture and culture. The key issue of this study is to understand how the Norwegian discourse constructed thoughts and viewpoints about Japan as their “other”. In Japan, Norwegians meant – like other westerners – that they had found an ideal source of reflection to modern architecture ideas. This discursive preoccupation was a part of a renewed interest for Japan in the Western world after the second world war, led forth by actors from the United States. Analyzing seven Norwegian architects’ texts from the years 1955-65, I examine how ideas and perception about Japanese architecture and culture, were constructed and influenced by the notion of “the other”.
The Norwegian architects’ articles on Japanese architecture and culture, were highly influenced by the historical interpretive traditions from earlier periods, but also the contemporary international discourse. In this way, the renewed interest for Japan transferred historical and international ideas to the Norwegian context. Ideas that in many respects, had the effect of creating a mythical and idealized version of Japanese architecture and culture, but which nonetheless had a significant impact on Norwegian architecture cultural perception generally. Based on the high amount of idealization of Japan, I argue that the discourse characterizes as a romanticized modernism, continuing the orientalist and exotic perception of Japan as the Wests “other” and as an oriental eden in the East, formatively constructed by japonism and other orientalist movements at the end of the 19th century.
The thesis shows how the Norwegian architecture discourse throughout the period, had a consistent focus on proto-modernistic ideas and values they meant substantiated traditional Japanese architecture. Ideas and values, they thought, were adaptable to the western context and modern architecture ideology. Though the discourse held a large number of different ideas – such as flexibility, standardization, cleanliness, asceticism and closeness to nature – do this thesis show how the discourse itself were characterized by a high amount of repetitiveness of the same ideas. In this way, the Norwegian architecture discourse were unidirectional in its content. Although, this did not mean that the different actors though the same or were interested in the same aspects surrounding these ideas.
Similar studies on the Norwegian architecture discourse perception of Japanese architecture and culture, have not been conducted previously. Combining theories and methods from a diverse range of fields – including visual and architecture history, postcolonial studies and culture history – this thesis can be regarded as a general contribution to our knowledge about what happens when one culture talks about another. Cultural perceptions build upon interpretive traditions, which are significant to how we perceive others today, like Japan. | |