Profile
Daichi Shigemoto (重本大地) is an architectural historian whose research examines the transnational circulation of architectural knowledge and its role in shaping modernity, with a particular focus on Japan’s exchanges with the West and with other parts of East Asia. His research builds on the premise that modern Japan occupied a dual position, both as an object observed by the West and as a subject observing other parts of East Asia. He investigates these two dimensions as mutually constitutive aspects of an entangled history. Specifically, he studies modern Japanese architects and architectural historians who sought to mediate between Western and Japanese architectural thought, including Chūta Itō (1867–1954), Hideto Kishida (1899–1966), and Kenzo Tange (1913–2005), as well as European and American architects who developed significant professional and intellectual connections with Japan, such as Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) and Bruno Taut (1880–1938). Most of his studies approach problems in architectural history by examining social networks among architects, architectural historians, and other actors through which architectural knowledge circulated. By bringing architectural historiographies written in English, German, and Japanese into dialogue, his work addresses gaps and distortions arising from linguistic divisions and Western-centric historical narratives.
He is currently based in Ikaruga, Nara, home to Hōryū-ji, a Buddhist temple that contains the world’s oldest extant wooden buildings. Alongside his research, he offers guided tours of Hōryū-ji in English and Japanese and teaches physics, English, and Japanese online to students from a range of backgrounds.
Education
- PhD in Architectural History, University of Texas at Austin, 2024
Dissertation Title: “Hideto Kishida: Mediator between Modernism and ‘Japanese-ness’ in Architecture”
Dissertation Committee Members: Christopher Long (chair), Mirka Beneš, Danilo Udovički-Selb, Kevin Nute, and Ken Tadashi Oshima - Master of Arts in Architecture, Waseda University, 2020
- Special Student, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2018–19
- Bachelor of Architecture, Waseda University, 2017
Full CV
Download PDF (Last updated: September 3, 2026)