Abstract
Matthew Stavros’ Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan’s Premodern Capital provides a rich description of urban development in Japan’s former capital city of Kyoto. This work aims to shed light on the nature of ancient Kyoto’s urban façade, a topic on which relatively few analyses have yet been focused. The goal of this book is to elucidate how ‘careful attention to space, place, and the built environment can reveal novel facets of old problems, enriching complexity and opening up new avenues of interpretation’, referring particularly to the interpretation of premodern Kyoto (p. xxiv). The book is organized into seven chapters, with an Introduction and Epilogue, and is arranged chronologically beginning with the establishment of the ‘premodern’ city in 794 and ending in the 17th century when officials had laid the foundations for what would become the ‘modern city’ of Kyoto.
Kyoto is largely descriptive in nature and covers a fairly extensive historical range. The book addresses many important topics related to the city’s planning and development, such as the ambitious efforts to construct the city architecturally and politically off Chinese models, the ways private ownership influenced the construction of cityscape, how building tendencies and ‘where’ things were built reflected assertions of identity and power, and how spatial transformations coincided with shifts in political power and elite ideology. Stavros emphasizes that ‘space, place, and orientation were deeply tied to pageantry as a function of status’, which greatly influenced the city’s development (p. 127).
One of the most compelling features of this book is that it is filled with vibrant illustrations of maps, photographs, and design layouts. These provide an intriguing supplement to the commentary and the spatial configurations discussed in the text. While some figures would benefit with a bit further elaboration, their presence nonetheless provides enriching visual aides to the topics being addressed. Another positive feature is that Stavros does a fascinating job of explicating in great detail Kyoto’s built environment throughout the entirety of the book. The reader is lucidly provided depictions into the complex intersections of design, life, architecture, and power throughout different eras in Kyoto’s development. Furthermore, Stavros draws from an impressive range of contemporary and historic sources in English and Japanese that add to Kyoto’s richness.
If there is one critique of the book from a cultural geographer’s perspective, it is that the book’s main contribution comes by way of detailed historical contextualization rather than a cultural or theoretical analysis. ‘Space and place’ as theoretical topics and analytical tools are largely left undiscussed, and explicit references to ‘space and place’ are relatively few. While this is understandable given the particular scope of the book, it also limits its potential utilization by cultural geographers and culturally oriented social scientists. Nevertheless, this does not subtract from the thorough historical descriptions Stavros has provided.
This book will be most valuable to those interested in Japanese history, architecture, and urban planning in a historical perspective, and those interested in the relationship between authoritative power and urban design.