By Thomas Daniell

Written by Thomas Daniell, with a foreword by
Thomas Weaver and an afterword by Peter Cook,
An Anatomy of Influence contains a wealth of texts
and images that together elucidate the theory and
practice of 12 leading Japanese architects. Rather
than the usual array of exquisite yet autonomous
buildings, this book focuses on the hitherto
unexplored lives of their architects, and the febrile
intellectual, social and political environment in which
they worked. The period covered spans from the
postwar decades up to the present day, but the
emphasis is on the radical transformation of Japan’s
architectural culture that occurred in the 1960s and
1970s: from envisioning rigorously systematised
urban plans to creating introverted private houses,
from the imitation of western modernism to the study
of non-western vernaculars, from the ruthless
demolition of historical buildings to the documentation
of forgotten objects, from rigid authorial control to
flexible user participation, from industrialised
prefabrication to self-build experimentation, from a
seemingly homogenous society to an enthusiastic
celebration of personal differences. The cumulative
result is not only a fascinating perspective on modern
Japanese architecture, but a profound recasting of
our understanding of the modern Japanese architect.

ISBN 9781907896965