Benoît Jacquet Nancy, 1973 Member since 2008
After his architect’s degree (M. Arch, School of Architecture of Paris-La Villette, 1998), Benoît Jacquet studied the evolution of contemporary urban landscape (DEA “Gardens, Landscapes and Territories”, EHESS, 1999) before specialising in the study of Japanese architecture at Kyoto University, as fellow of the Japanese government (1999-2005). At Kyoto University he defended, in 2002, a master thesis on the influence of milieu in the residential architecture of Shinohara Kazuo and, in 2006, a doctoral thesis on the principles of monumentality of the architecture of Tange Kenzô. Post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Researcher affiliated to the Laboratory of architectural and urban design in the Department of Architecture of Kyoto University (1999-2006), the Laboratory “Architecture, Culture, Society” at the University of Paris-8 (2002-2007), the Laboratory of the History of Architecture, Urbanism and Technology in Asia at the University of Tokyo (2006-2008), and the Research Center on Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan civilisations at the Collège de France (since 2007), Benoît Jacquet was appointed Head of the EFEO Center in Kyoto in Spring 2008. Associate Professor (maître de conférences) at the EFEO, he teaches at the Institute for Research in Humanities of Kyoto University where he organises, together with Silvio Vita (ISEAS, Scuola Italiana di Studi sull'Asia Orientale), a seminar on the perception of Modern Japan in the texts of travellers in Japan (Soto kara mita Nihon kindai no kiroku). The researches of Benoît Jacquet concern the history and theory of architecture and urbanism in contemporary Japan. From a comprehensive knowledge of the theories of Japanese modern architecture, his point of view of the history of Japanese architecture is involved in an epistemological perspective of ‘crossed history’ influenced by the dynamics of the cultural transfers between the West and the Far East. His researches deal with the study of the material forms of architecture (from the residential scale to the monumental scale), taken from the fieldwork and the archives. His inquiries explicit the theoretical contribution of individual agents (the architect, the client, the antiquarian) into the formation of the history of Japanese architecture and urbanism. Firstly attracted by the literary representations of urban landscape, particularly in the detective novel (DEA, 1999), Benoît Jacquet focused on the study of the architectural discourse and the analysis of architects’ texts related to the conception and the realisation of architecture’s works. His master thesis on the writings of the architect Shinohara Kazuo (1925-2007) put forward the influence of the changes in the physical and social environment on the production of the architectural discourse (texts, drawings, buildings). His doctoral study on the principles of monumentality of the modern architecture in the first works of the architect Tange Kenzô (1913-2005) extends the cultural approach of architecture to a critical time for the modernisation of Japanese architecture: from the thirties to the post-war. His recent researches on the birth of Japanese architectural theory during Meiji and Taishô eras deal with the study of classical Japanese architecture (17th century) and its interpretation into the discourse of modern architects. |
Publications 2004 Jacquet Benoît, Takamatsu Shin, « L’Expo’70 comme achèvement de l’architecture moderne japonaise », in Yann Nussaume, ed., Anthologie critique de la théorie architecturale japonaise : le regard du milieu, Brussels, Ousia, p. 335-344. 2006 « Tange Kenzô no “dentô” to “sôzô” no gainen ni hisomu monyumentariti no genri: Tange Kenzô no kenchiku gensetsu no keisei ni kan suru kenkyû 丹下健三の「伝統」と「創造」の概念に潜むモニュメンタリティの原理・丹下健三の建築言説の形成に関する研究 – Principles of Latent Monumentality in Tange Kenzô’s Concepts of Tradition and Creation. A Study of the Formation of Tange Kenzô’s Discourse », Nihon kenchiku gakkai keikakukei ronbun-shû 日本建築学会計画系論文集 – Journal of Architecture and Planning, No 601, Tôkyô, Architectural Institute of Japan, March, p. 211-216. 2006 « The Influence of Milieu in the Residential Architecture of Shinohara Kazuo. A Study of Architectural Discourse », Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, vol. 5, No 1, Tôkyô, Architectural Institute of Japan, May, p. 15-20. 2006 « Tange Kenzô », Universalia 2006, Paris, Encyclopaedia Universalis, p. 479-480. 2008 « A Place of Immanence : Hiroshima’s Ground Zero », in Iris Aravot, Eran Neuman, eds., Introduction to ArchiPhen : some approaches and interpretations of phenomenology in architecture, Haifa, Technion I.I.T. [forthcoming, June]. 2008 « Places of immanence: A Reinterpretation of the Origins of Architecture in Wartime Japan », in Iris Aravot, Eran Neuman, eds., Back to the Things Themselves: Architectural Experience, Memory and Thought, Haifa, Technion I.I.T. [forthcoming]. 2008 « Tange Kenzô et la question de la monumentalité japonaise. Analyse du discours architectural relatif au concours pour le Mémorial de la Construction de la Sphère de co-prospérité de la Grande Asie orientale », BEFEO, Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, 46 pages, 2008 [forthcoming]. |