“What are the best books about Japanese Art & Architecture?” We looked at 155 of the top books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

The top 10 titles, all appearing on 2 “Best Art & Architecture” book lists, are ranked below by how many lists they appear on. The remaining 100+ titles, as well as the lists we used are in alphabetical order at the bottom of the page.

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Top 10 Japanese Art Books

10 .) Courtyard Gardens of Kyoto’s Merchant Houses by Katsuhiko Mizuno

Lists It Appears On:

• Japan Visitor 3
• Japan Visitor 4

“One of the pleasures of visiting Kyoto is to wander around narrow streets lined with machiya, the traditional townhouses of the merchant class. Tucked away inside each of these unusually long, narrow dwellings is a hidden oasis: a small garden known as the tsuboniwa. Following on from Landscapes for Small Spaces and The Hidden Gardens of Kyoto, the third book by garden enthusiast and photographer Katsuhiko Mizuno focuses on these miniature courtyard gardens of the machiya.
A wide variety of gardens are beautifully photographed and presented: from those in shops, inns, restaurants, and tearooms, to gardens in many private homes. A total of 150 color images from fifty-two houses showcase the flawless Kyoto aesthetic and use of limited space. Surrounding architectural features, such as shoji sliding doors, reed blinds, beams, railings, and walkways are also featured.
Each photograph is accompanied by analytical and insightful comments from the author, making this a useful reference book for all garden lovers, as well as a visual feast for anyone with an interest in traditional Japanese design.”

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9 .) Discovering the Arts of Japan: A Historical Overview by Tsuneko S. Sadao

Lists It Appears On:

• Japan Visitor 1
• Japan Visitor 2

This handy reference book is perfect for anyone interested in Japanese art, whether they be art history students and enthusiasts or tourists visiting Japan. A comprehensive overview of the major trends in art throughout the history of Japan, Discovering the Arts of Japan includes a select bibliography and list of major museums housing collections of Japanese art. Handsomely presented and easy-to-use, this book offers a valuable introduction to the subject, and encourages further in-depth study of specific periods and art forms.

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8 .) Eikoh Hosoe: Kamaitachi by Eikō Hosoe

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Goodreads

Fans of Japanese culture, for a little more than the cost of the prix-fixe sushi dinner at New York restaurant Masa, you can own one of the classics of Japanese photography. More than 35 years after it first appeared, Kamaitachi, a long out-of-print masterwork by Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe, gets its first publication outside Japan. Not just a reprint but a recreation in collaboration with the photographer and in homage to the innovative original, this limited edition holds 40 black-and-white tritone images, each of which receives the scope of a gatefold. Slipcased and protected by a clamshell box, the book is not just a publication but an objet d’art in itself. Hosoe was known for pushing the boundaries of traditional photography through his interactions with important Japanese artists such as Butoh dancer Tasumi Hijikata and novelist Yukio Mishima. In Kamaitachi, he sought to recapture, with choreographic style, some of the lost landscapes and images of his childhood experience in the closing years of World War II.

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7 .) New Bar and Club Design by Bethan Ryder

Lists It Appears On:

• Japan Visitor 1
• Japan Visitor 2

The sequel to the highly successful and critically praised book, Bar and Club Design, New Bar and Club Design is an elegant photographic journey through the latest international design trends in the bar and club industries, highlighting locations completed since 2001. New Bar and Club Design documents a resurgence of cocktail culture and an explosion of the style bar, places that are professionally designed and serve high-quality spirits, wine, and cocktails. Such bars have continued to open in cities such as New York, London, and Tokyo, as well as in locales like Beirut and Bangkok. Bethan Ryder has also documented a new interest in creating lower budget designer bars that are as visually interesting and unusually designed as the big-budget productions, such as Andy Wahloo in Paris and Loungelover in London. Club culture also continues to thrive, albeit on a far smaller scale than the superclubs of the 1990s. Nightclubs have grown cozier. Late-night lounge bars have emerged to cater to the grown-up clubber, offering comfort and luxury. The futuristic superclubs still being built now offer the very latest in technology and audiovisual entertainment. Divided by category into bars and restaurant bars, hotel bars, and clubs, each profile includes imaginative photographs, thoughtful descriptions, and architectural plans of the design. Sure to be an excellent guide for bar and club owners, architects, and designers, New Bar and Club Design also will appeal to travelers and trendsetters of every description.

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6 .) Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing by Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada

Lists It Appears On:

• Japan Visitor 3
• Japan Visitor 4

“Potential for creating designs in textiles can be seen even in the physical properties of cloth. The simple fact that cloth tightly compressed into wrinkles or folds resists the penetration of dye is an opportunity-an opportunity to let the pliancy of textiles speak in making designs and patterns.

People around the world have recognized this opportunity, producing resist designs in textiles by shaping and then securing cloth in various ways before dyeing. Yet in no other country has the creative potential of this basic principle been understood and applied as it has in Japan. Here, in fact, it has been expanded into a whole family of traditional resist techniques, involving first shaping the cloth by plucking, pinching, twisting, stitching, folding, pleating, and wrapping it, and then securing the shapes thus made by binding, looping, knotting, clamping, and the like. This entire family of techniques is called shibori. “

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5 .) The Fine Art of Kimono Embroidery by Shizuka Kusano

Lists It Appears On:

• Japan Visitor 3
• Japan Visitor 4

Shizuka Kusano is one of the most admired and recognized textile artists in Japan today. With the publication of The Fine Art of Kimono Embroidery, readers in the West will come to know and appreciate her work for its great beauty and grace. Kusano’s canvases are kimono, obi (the sash used to tie the kimono) and tapestries, on which she creates extraordinary compositions in brilliant color and subtle tones, with a rich contrast in textures. Her themes are drawn from Japanese poetry, literature and art, and feature such seasonal motifs as trees, flowers, birds, and streams, designs which are uniquely Japanese in sensibility and expression. Working exclusively with silk threads and fabric, and delicately balancing the use of space in her composition, Kusano’s designs achieve the sophistication for which the best Japanese art is known.

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4 .) Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence by Andrew Juniper

Lists It Appears On:

• Japan Visitor 1
• Japan Visitor 2

Taken from the Japanese words wabi, which translates to less is more, and sabi, which means attentive melancholy, wabi sabi refers to an awareness of the transient nature of earthly things and a corresponding pleasure in the things that bear the mark of this impermanence. As much a state of mind—an awareness of the things around us and an acceptance of our surroundings—as it is a design style, wabi sabi begs us to appreciate the pure beauty of life—a chipped vase, a quiet rainy day, the impermanence of all things. Presenting itself as an alternative to today’s fast-paced, mass-produced, neon-lighted world, wabi sabi reminds us to slow down and take comfort in the natural beauty around us.

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3 .) Warriors of Art: A Guide to Contemporary Japanese Artists by Yumi Yamaguchi

Lists It Appears On:

• Japan Visitor 3
• Japan Visitor 4

Recently the West has been inundated by a steady flow of images from manga, anime, and the video games that are a key part of todays Japanese visual culture. At the same time, Japanese contemporary artists are gaining a higher profile overseas: many Westerners are already familiar with Takashi Murakamis brightly colored, cartoonlike characters, or with Junko Mizunos grotes-cute Lolita-style girls. Perhaps less familiar are the absurd fighting machines of Kenji Yanobe, the many disguises of Tomoko Sawada, or the grotesque fairytale landscapes of Tomoko Konoike. Warriors of Art features the work of forty of the latest and most relevant contemporary Japanese artists, from painters and sculptors, to photographers and performance artists, with lavish full-color spreads of their key works. Author Yumi Yamaguchi offers an insightful introduction to the main themes of each artist, and builds up a fascinating portrait of the society that has given birth to them: a Japan that still bears the scars of atomic destruction, a Japan with a penchant for the cute and the childish, a Japan whose manga and anime industries have come to dominate the world.

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2 .) Japanese Art by Joan Stanley-Baker

Lists It Appears On:

• Biblio
• Goodreads

The uniqueness of Japanese culture rests on the fact that, throughout its history, Japan has continually taken, adapted, and transformed diverse influences from Korea, China, the South Seas, Europe, and the Americas into distinct traditions of its own. Extensively revised, updated, and expanded since its first publication, this authoritative survey of the arts of Japan from the prehistoric period to the present brings together the results of the most recent research on the subject. Profusely illustrated with examples from all the arts―painting, calligraphy, the decorative arts, and architecture―and with a wide-ranging bibliography, Japanese Art addresses itself equally to those who come to the subject for the first time and to the student. It is a concise overview of a fascinating and perplexing culture in which interest has never been greater than it is today.

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1 .) Japanese Castles 1540-1640

Lists It Appears On:

• Japan Visitor 1
• Abebooks

The landscape of 16th- and 17th-century Japan was dominated by the graceful and imposing castles constructed by the powerful ‘daimyo’ of the period. In this the most turbulent era in Japanese history, these militarily sophisticated structures provided strongholds for the consolidation and control of territory, and inevitably they became the focus for many of the great sieges of Japanese history: Nagashino (1575), Kitanosho (1583), Odawara (1590), Fushimi (1600), Osaka (1615) and Hara (1638), the last of the battles that brought an end to a period of intense civil war. This title traces their development from the earliest timber stockades to the immense structures that dominated the great centres of Osaka and Edo.

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The 100+ Additional Best Japanese Architecture Books

11 Best Art & Architecture Book Sources/Lists