The Japanese House: Material Culture in the Modern Home

"This impressive study of the modern Japanese home takes the reader into the domestic worlds of middle-class men and women, showing how aesthetic practices are shaped by national ideologies regarding gender and the family, as well as by a sense of the past encountering the transformative energies of modernization." David Morgan, Duke University

In the West, the Japanese house has reached iconic status in its architecture, decoration and style. Is this neat, carefully constructed version of Japanese life in fact a myth? Inge Daniels goes behind the doors of real Japanese homes to find out how highly private domestic lives are lived in Japan. The book examines every aspect of the home and daily life - from decoration, display, furniture and the tatami mat, to eating, sleeping, gift-giving, recycling and worship. For students and researchers in anthropology and architecture, The Japanese House re-evaluates contemporary Japanese life through an ethnographic lens, examining key topics of consumption, domesticity and the family. Highly illustrated throughout, the book will appeal to all those who are interested in Japanese culture, and in how and why people live the way they do in modern Japan.

Inge Daniels is University Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford.
Susan Andrews is Senior Lecturer in Photography, Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design, London Metropolitan University.