Part I. Japan-ness in architecture: Japanese taste and its recent historical construction -- Western structure versus Japanese space -- Yayoi and Jōmon -- Nature and artifice -- Ka (hyopthesis) and Hi (spirit) -- Ma (interstice) and rubble -- Fall and mimicry: a case study of the year 1942 in Japan -- Part II. A mimicry of origin: Emperor Tenmu's Ise Jungū: The problematic called "Ise" -- Identity over time -- Archetype of veiling -- A fabricated origin: Ise and the Jinshin disturbance -- Part III. Construction of the pure land (Jōdo): Chōgen's rebuilding of Tōdai-ji: The modern fate of pure geometric form -- Chōgen's constructivism -- The five-ring pagoda in historical turmoil -- Mandala and site plan at Jōdo-ji -- The architectonics of the Jōdo-dō (Pure Land Pavilion) at Jōdo-ji -- Big Buddha Pavilion (Daibutsu-den) at Tōdai-ji -- Chōgen's archi-vision -- A multifaceted performance -- Brunelleschi versus Chōgen -- Chōgen/Daibutsu-yō and Eisai/Zenshu-yō -- Three kinds of hierophany -- Raigō materialized -- A non-Japanesque Japanese architecture -- Part IV. A diagonal strategy: Katsura as envisioned by "Enshū taste": Katsura and its space of ambiguity -- Architectonic polysemy -- Authorship of Katsura: the diagonal line