‘Architecture and Meaning: Historic Preservation in a High-Tech Country’

UWM School of Architecture and Urban Planning
May 22, 2017 to June 22, 2017
6 Credits – $5500

Japan Program Description

This intensive four week course of study in Japan is directed by UWM SARUP Professor Matthew Jarosz and Kogakuin University Professor Namiko Yamauchi and is designed to introduce students to important architectural and urban artifacts in Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo and also to examine the cultural context that shapes and informs them. Structured as a carefully calculated mix of old and new, students undertake field study of iconic buildings and urban spaces in eastern thought about architecture, while simultaneously exploring cultural themes around the conflicts of modernism and heritage.

The UWM study group collaborates with student groups from several Japanese Universities, with a historic building technology field workshop for a week within the month-long study period. Past years included design and construction workshops in thatch roofing, historic mud plaster wall construction, and traditional Japanese wood joinery framing. Historic building documentation booklets are created for a different endangered Japanese building each year. Japanese architecture professors, professional engineers, technicians, and preservation leaders function as instructors for the group.

Excursions to Wakayama, Nara, Kanazawa, Nikko, and Shirakawa follow similar themes. A two-day excursion to Himeji and Hiroshima in western Japan, as well as a three-day excursion to isolated, thatched-roofed villages in the Japanese mountains, are offered as part of this field study. This trip represents the 12th trip of its kind offered by SARUP and has served as a point of departure for students interested in excursions to Korea, Taiwan, China, and southeast Asia at the conclusion of the trip

Upcoming meetings to be announced.
March 15 sign-up deadline.

Go to UWM CIE to sign-up or contact Matt Jarosz at mjarosz@uwm.edu.