2012
Alice Y. Tseng
- Associate Professor
- Boston University
![Picture of Alice Y. Tseng](https://www.acls.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/5F742366-258A-E111-BD9E-000C293A51F7.jpg)
Abstract
Founded in 794 as the imperial city, Kyoto was designed as the center of Japan, politically, economically, and culturally. The ensuing millennium witnessed the vacillation of imperial authority until a decisive break occurred around 1869 with the permanent relocation of the sitting emperor to Tokyo. The identity shift to ex-capital paradoxically motivated the city to newly prioritize imperial time and memory. This project examines the use of new architecture to remember a long history in modern Kyoto. Specifically, it concentrates on the city's creation of cultural monuments to celebrate imperial continuity in a century that physically disengaged the emperor from Kyoto but ideologically bound imperial history and credence to the city, anointing it the genius loci of Japanese high culture.