Faculty of Arts Asia Institute

Curriculum Vitae

Professor William Howard Coaldrake

Foundation Professor of Japanese
Head of Japanese Studies



Professional Address

Asia Institute
University of Melbourne
Victoria 3010, Australia

Tel: +61 3 8344 5990
Fax: +61 3 9349 4974
E-mail: whc@unimelb.edu.au

Degrees, Qualifications

1983 Ph.D. Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Thesis title: "Gateways of Power: Edo Architecture and Tokugawa Authority,
1603-1651"
1978 A. M., Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1976 B.A. (Asian Studies) Honours, The Australian National University,
Australian Capital Territory, Australia

Career, Principal Offices, Principal Positions Held

Jul 1992 - Foundation Professor of Japanese, The University of Melbourne, Australia
1998 - Head of Japanese Studies, Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Jan - Jul 1996 Visiting Scholar, Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University
1992 - 1995 Head, Department of Japanese and Chinese, The University of Melbourne, Australia
1991 - 1992 Senior Research Fellow, Division of Pacific and Asian History,
The Australian National University, Australia
Michaelmas Term, 1991 Senior Associate Member, St Antony's College, University of Oxford
1990 - 1991 Founding Program Convenor and Course Coordinator, Graduate Program in East Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Australia
Michaelmas Term, 1989 Senior Associate Member, St Antony's College, University of Oxford
Visiting University Lecturer, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford
Tutorials in Japanese History, Oxford Colleges, U.K.
1988 - 1991 Research Fellow, Division of Pacific and Asian History,
The Australian National University, Australia
1986 - 1988 Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering,
University of Tokyo
1983 - 1986 Lecturer on Fine Arts, Harvard University
Courses of instruction given in the Department of Fine Arts, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Architecture, and the Core Curriculum
1981 - 1983 Teaching Fellow, Department of Fine Arts, Harvard University
1977 - 1986 Resident Tutor in History of Art, Lowell House, Harvard College

Recent Consultancies


Research Interests


Major Honours, Grants, Awards and Prizes


Principal Publications (* refereed)

Sole-authored books

  1. Japanese Castles, translation and adaptation, with introduction, appendices and glossary added. Japanese Arts Library, Tokyo, New York and San Francisco. Kodansha International and Shibundo, 1986. Originally published in Japanese as Shiro, by Motoo Hinago, Nihon no Bijutsu series no. 54, 1970. (200 pp., 129 illustrations)
  2. The Way of the Carpenter - Tools and Japanese Architecture. Tokyo and New York, Weatherhill, 1990. (viii + 204 pp., 161 illustrations)
  3. Architecture and Authority in Japan. Nissan Institute, Oxford, Japan Studies Series. London and New York, Routledge, 1996. (xxi + 337 pp., 142 illustrations)
  4. Japan From War to Peace: The Coaldrake Records 1939-1956, (edited and compiled by William H. Coaldrake), London and New York, Routledge Curzon, 2003.

Chapters in books

  1. "Order and Anarchy. Tokyo from 1868 to the Present" in Tokyo: Form and Spirit, M. Friedman (ed.), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1986, pp. 62-75.
  2. "Architecture at Todai-ji" in The Great Eastern Temple - Treasures of Japanese Buddhist Art from Todai-ji, Bloomington, The Art Institute of Chicago in association with Indiana University Press, 1986, pp. 32-47.
  3. "Building a New Establishment: Tokugawa Iemitsu's Consolidation of Power and the Taitokuin Mausoleum' in Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era, James L. McClain, John M. Merriman and Ugawa Kaoru (ed.), Ithaca and New York, Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 153-172. (Also published in Japanese.)
  4. "Japanese Studies: Humanities and Social Sciences" in Strategic Report on Research and Training in the Humanities for the Australian Research Council. Report commissioned by the Australian Academy of the Humanities (1998).
  5. "Metaphors of the Metropolis: Architectural and Artistic Representations of the Identity of Edo," in Nicolas Fiévé and Paul Waley (eds.), Japanese Capitals in Historical Perspective: Place, Power and Memory in Kyoto, Edo and Tokyo, London and New York, RoutledgeCurzon Press, 2003, pp. 129-149.

Encyclopedia, dictionary, reference book entries

  1. "Gates (mon)" 3: 12-13; "Roof tiles (kawara)", 6: 337-339, in Encyclopedia of Japan. Gen Itasaka (ed.), 12 volumes, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1983.
  2. "Japanese Architecture" in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Japan. Richard Bowring and Peter Kornicki (eds.),Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 201-208.
  3. Japanese Architecture-Introduction" (17: 45-53); "Castles" (17: 83-86); Heinouchi Masanobu (14: 315); Kora Munehiro (18: 238); in Macmillan Dictionary of Art, [companion to the Grove Dictionary of Music]. Jane Turner (ed.), 34 volumes, Macmillan Publishers, London, 1996.

Selected articles

  1. "Edo Architecture and Tokugawa Law". Monumenta Nipponica, XXXVI-3, Autumn, 1981, pp. 253-284.*
  2. "Manufactured Housing-the New Japanese Vernacular". The Japan Architect, four part series, Numbers 352-354, 357, August-October 1986, January 1987.*
  3. "Human Technology - The Japanese Home Goes Intelligent". The Japan Architect, March 1988, pp. 33-40.*
  4. "The Gatehouse of the Shogun's Senior Councillor - Building Design and Status Symbolism in Japanese Architecture of the Late Edo Period". The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XLVII, December 1988, pp. 397-410.*
  5. "The Architecture of Reality: Trends in Japanese Housing 1985-89". The Japan Architect, October 1989, pp. 61-66.*
  6. "City Planning and Palace Architecture in the Creation of the Nara Political Order: The Accommodation of Place and Purpose at Heijo-kyu". East Asian History, 1-1, 1991, pp. 37-54.*
  7. "Unno: Edo-period Post-town of the central Japan Alps". Asian Art, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution and Oxford University Press, Spring, 1992, pp. 8-29.*
  8. "Componenti nuovi, assemblaggi antichi" (New Tradition, Old Technology). Casabella, Nos. 608-609, January-February, 1994, pp. 68-71.*
  9. "Western Technology Transfer and the Japanese Architectural Heritage in the Late Nineteenth Century". Fabrications, 5, September 1994, pp. 21-57.*
  10. "Research Report: The Taitokuin Mausoleum". Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 52-4, Winter, 1997, pp. 541-546.*
  11. "Taitokuin reibyo no yomigaeri" (The Rebirth of the Taitokuin Mausoleum). Kenchikushi, Number 30, April 1998, pp. 66-74.*

Articles in professional journals and newspapers

  1. "The Resurrection of the shokunin - The Third Conference of the Timberframe Architecture Research Forum, Kyoto, February 1987". The Japan Architect, May, 1987, pp. 6-7.
  2. "Carpenter versus machine". Fine Homebuilding, 48, August/September 1988, pp. 102-104.
  3. "Myths and Realities of Japanese Building". Architecture [Official Journal of the American Institute of Architects], September 1988, pp. 113-117.
  4. "Japan at the end of an era - how should we respond?" Current Affairs Bulletin, 65-69, February 1989, pp. 29-30.
  5. "Eikoku no shiro Nihon no shiro". Shitsunai, 8, 1992, p. 150.
  6. Editor, special edition on Asian Architecture, TAASA Review, The Journal of the Asian Arts Society of Australia, Vol. 6-4, December 1997.
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