KA ME RA

304 pages

his book of two halves is at once a gallery of jaw-­dropping modern Japanese buildings and an in-­depth explanation of how the photographs of them were made.

KA ME RA introduces Japanese-architecture enthusiasts to the nine photographers who have been instrumental in shaping the way we view the country’s spectacular postwar buildings. Through richly illustrated pages, readers can “travel” across the nation to witness its most astonishing structures through the eyes—­and camera lenses—­of these remarkable artists.

But can documenting buildings in this way ever be entirely neutral? Author and Japanese architecture expert Ari Seligmann examines the post-­World War II evolution of architectural photography in Japan as a vehicle for considering both universal and culturally specific concepts of the world through images. Through a veritable feast of exquisitely printed pictures, he grapples with the scope of architectural photography, recognizing that it is more than producing marketable images for architects and magazines, but neither is it a strictly historical record.

Both a photobook, a series of biographies, and an architectural photo history, the book traces developments in one of the most exciting architectural contexts anywhere in the world. Japanese architecture is globally recognized through the circulation of architectural photographs, but the artists behind these photographs have had almost no global recognition, until now.

Profiled photographers: Yoshio Watanabe (1907–2000); Chuji Hirayama (1909–2005); Akio Kawasumi (1923–2007); Osamu Murai (1928– 2016); Yukio Futagawa (1932–2013); Tomio Ohashi (1932–2017); Kiyoshi Takai (b. 1938­ ); Shuji Yamada (b. 1939); Mitsumasa Fujitsuka (b. 1939).