Critical Distance

Everything I’ve read or heard about Manfredo Tafuri’s Modern Architecture in Japan—recently translated into English from the original 1964 Italian edition—repeats the same two facts: that he was just twenty-nine when he wrote it and had not visited the country nor the individual buildings and contexts on which he was to write. Even if you put aside matters of age, Tafuri’s decision to historicize from a distance of six thousand miles presents obvious problems. Without seeing the architectural and urbanistic “facts” on the ground for his survey, he was forced to rely on the books and journals in his bibliography—photos and texts translated out of Japanese, preapproved for foreign audiences. How do his selections and omissions from these sources put him in the role of “operative critic,” the type of historian-propagandist he’s remembered for later denouncing? Had he elected or been able to conduct onsite research, the shape of his account would have likely changed. But i…