Cooking Up Dinner Speeches: Ise Gropius in Japan publishes for the first time the travelogues of Ise Gropius — written during a 1954 tour of Japan — revealing a chronicler of sharp wit and genuine curiosity operating in the long shadow of her famous husband.
About This Book
In May 1954, Ise and Walter Gropius embarked on a three-month tour of Japan, organised by the International House of Japan and financed by the Rockefeller Foundation. While Walter lectured and met with architects and academics, Ise wrote. Her detailed reports — the only known cohesive texts she produced in the postwar period — move with equal fluency from discussions of reconstruction and Bauhaus exhibitions to Zen Buddhism, Japanese women, and the local cuisine. These travelogues, presented here in facsimile and extensively annotated by editor Almut Grunewald, recover a voice that has long been underrepresented in Bauhaus historiography. Contributions from Anne Hultzsch and Shuntaro Nozawa extend the scholarly context.
Key Features
- 152 pages of facsimile travelogues, editorial annotations, and scholarly contributions
- Edited by Almut Grunewald, with contributions from Anne Hultzsch and Shuntaro Nozawa
- Published by gta Verlag, 1983
What You'll Discover
- Ise Gropius's firsthand observations of postwar Japan — its reconstruction debates, cultural institutions, and social fabric — as witnessed during a tightly scheduled three-month diplomatic tour
- Her commentary on lectures and discussions involving architects, artisans, artists, journalists, and university lecturers, illuminating the international circulation of modernist ideas in the 1950s
- A distinctly personal register that encompasses evening parties, the role of Japanese women, Zen Buddhism, and cuisine alongside more formal architectural encounters
- The texts in facsimile form, published here for the first time, accompanied by extensive scholarly annotation and supplementary essays
About the Author
Almut Grunewald edited this volume and provided its extensive annotations. Beyond her editorial role in this publication, further biographical details are not provided in the source description.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 152
- Dimensions: 216 × 279 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 978-3-85676-454-8
- Publisher: gta Verlag
- Publication Date: 1983
Perfect For: Architectural historians, Bauhaus scholars, and readers interested in the postwar exchange between Western modernism and Japanese architecture and culture.