Alex Faulkner: Toshihide to Tesco - Why do buildings look the way they do?

What is the primary cultural influence that has delivered the Modernist aesthetic that dominates our built landscape, especially in retail and office environments? 

In this talk, Alex Faulkner, an artist and the Director of the Toshidama Gallery, traces the influence of Japanese design on emerging European and American architects in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Has commercial gain removed the spiritual importance of Japanese design and left us with a built environment with neither the familiarity of our own regional style nor the sensuality of the Japanese? We will look at how Japonisme is Western culture's guilty secret.