Infested empire: architecture and entomology in colonial Japan

Abstract

As Japan’s colonial empire pushed westward in the early twentieth century, insects pushed back. Colonists in Taiwan were besieged by the Formosan termite, a voracious but then relatively mysterious species that ate everything from government buildings to Shinto shrines. The Japanese government dispatched termite specialists to the island in response to document the damage and develop a solution. The problem was not only that termites could eat away at architecture in Taiwan; more dire was the possibility that they could travel throughout the empire and back to the mainland. Such an existential threat prompted entomologists to collaborate with architects and engineers and develop novel methods of study. Looking at entomological reports, architectural histories, and buildings that were both destroyed by termites and dedicated to displaying them, I show how termite-pocked buildings were mediated to map the Japanese colonial empire and physicalise its potentially dangerous interdependence. By approaching the special issue’s theme of ‘unmaking’ as an act of insect-led destruction, I argue that vulnerable wooden architecture served as a medium of connection between human and insect actors as both came to terms with empire.