Seminar #2 Matthew Mullane – World Observation: Empire, Architecture, and theGlobal Archive of Itō Chūta

10.12.2025, 15h00 Whiteroom

How do you make a world history of architecture? Do you write it, draw it, or build it? In this talk, Matthew will introduce the work of key Japanese architect and historian Itō Chūta (1867-1954) and his mission to create the first world history of architecture in Japan. Looking through Itō’s writings, drawings, and built projects during the Meiji period (1868-1912), Matthew reveals the epistemology and imperial ideology behind Asia’s first global architectural thinker. Matthew argues that Itō’s pathbreaking work forces us to rethink key ideas that continue to shape the discipline, including the media condition of architectural history, the politics of making global “connections,” and the relationship between architectural history and empire.

Matthew Mullane is an Assistant Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture at Radboud University in Nijmegen, NL. After receiving his PhD from Princeton University, he was a postdoc at Harvard University, and Tokyo College, The University of Tokyo. His research focuses on histories of global thinking in architecture, intersections between science and architecture, and the relationship between empire and modernism, particularly in Japan. In addition to books and edited collections, his writing has appeared in Architectural Theory Review, The Journal of Architecture, Clara, AA Files, Log, gta papers, Public Domain Review, and others.

Image Caption: Itō Chūta, “Homes Dreaming at Night.” From Itō Chūta, “Fīrudo nōto” [Field notebooks], Itō Chūta Materials, archive 1001–10013, 1902–1905, Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ). Courtesy of the AIJ Architectural Museum.