Itō Chūta (伊東忠太) (1867–1954) was a Japanese architect, architectural
historian, and critic. He is recognized as the leading architect and
architectural theorist of early twentieth-century Imperial Japan.
Second son of a doctor in Yonezawa,
present-day Yamagata Prefecture, Itō was educated in Tokyo. From 1889 to 1892
he studied under Tatsuno Kingo in the Department of Architecture at the Imperial
University. Josiah Conder was still teaching in the department, while Ernest
Fenollosa and Okakura Kakuzō were also influential in the formation of Itō's
ideas. For graduation he designed a Gothic cathedral and wrote a
dissertation on architectural theory. His doctoral thesis was on the
architecture of Hōryū-ji. He was professor of architecture at the Imperial
University from 1905, then of Waseda University from 1928.
Itō travelled widely, to the Forbidden City
with photographer Ogawa Kazumasa in 1901 and subsequently, after fourteen
months in China, to Burma, India, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Europe and the United
States. Later he was involved in the planning of Chōsen Jingū in Seoul and a
survey of the monuments of Jehol in Manchukuo. He incorporated elements of the diverse
architectural styles he encountered in his many writings and approximately one
hundred design projects.
Itō helped formulate the Ancient Temples and
Shrines Preservation Law of 1897, an early measure to protect the Cultural
Properties of Japan. He is also credited with coining the Japanese term for
architecture, namely kenchiku (建築) (lit. 'erection of buildings') in place of
the former zōkagaku (造家学) (lit. 'study of making houses'). A member of The
Japan Academy, in 1943 he was awarded the Order of Culture. Itō has more
recently been criticised, with specific reference to his writings on Ise Grand
Shrine, for having 'blurred a religio-political discourse with an architectural
discourse'.
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