Domesticated modern: Hybrid houses in Meiji Japan, 1870--1900

This study examines the courses of architectural hybridization during the Meiji period in Japan (1868--1912). The processes of modernization were spatial, material, and corporeal as well as intellectual. By combining Western elements with Japanese practices, designers, builders, and patrons created hybrid residences for modern purposes. These houses show how materials, building technology, spaces, and uses developed from "pure" to hybrid. They reveal that the Meiji government, usually considered a patron of institutional architecture, in fact sponsored the creation of new residential environments as well.; Part one of this dissertation considers the role of domestic architecture in architectural education at the Imperial College of Engineering. From 1871 to 1885, this college trained the first generation of architects in modern Japan. The European intellectual frameworks adopted by the students prompted them to look to the history, customs, and natural environment of Japan in order to conceive buildings uniquely Japanese. The Westernization of architecture thus simultaneously caused a rediscovery of Japan.; The second section of this study examines the role of the Kaitakushi in developing new modes of residential architecture for the colonization of Hokkaido. In the 1870s, the Kaitakushi combined American architectural styles and balloon-frame technology with social and spatial patterns derived from pre-Meiji housing. These houses reveal the process of hybridization as disparate concepts, materials, and practices were adapted to meet the demands of an unfamiliar climate and social setting.; The final section analyzes how earthquakes caused architects to conceptually and geographically expand the realm of architecture. With the rapid development of modern seismology, engineers and architects used houses first as tools for investigating earthquakes and then as experimental sites for seismic structure. Major earthquakes in the 1890s prompted prominent architects to apply principles of science and structure to typical Japanese dwellings. As they journeyed to earthquake sites to investigate damage and propose seismic structure, they incorporated provincial regions and building types into the field of modern architecture.