Finding Ancient Kyoto in the Modern Cityscape

Free Talk Event
February 13, 2026

Kyoto is one of the world’s great historical cities. It was Japan’s political and cultural capital for more than a millennium before the dawn of the modern era and today, it remains home to countless cultural monuments, including grand Buddhist temples, sacred gardens, opulent imperial palaces and imposing castles. The gentle hills south of the city have grown the leaves of Japan’s finest matcha for centuries. This talk introduces the many ways Kyoto’s rich history are still visible in the contemporary landscape. It is geared toward travellers, past and future, who want to gain a deep appreciation for a place that has been at the centre of Japanese culture from the very beginning.

Keywords

Kyoto, urban history, monumentalism, ancient and modern, the sacred and profane, machiya, architecture.

DR MATTHEW STAVROS

Matthew Stavros is a historian of early Japan at the University of Sydney and a translator of Classical Japanese literature. He is the author of Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan’s Premodern Capital (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014) and the translator of Hōjōki: A Buddhist Reflection on Solitude, Imperfection and Transcendence (Tuttle, 2024) and The Tale of Princess Kaguya (Tuttle, 2026). His research focuses primarily on the material culture of premodern Japan and eastern Asia, with particular interest in cities, buildings, and religious monuments. He trained in architectural and urban history at Kyoto University and read history at Princeton University where he earned a Ph.D. He teaches modern and classical Japanese language, Japanese history and historiography, and more broadly on the histories and cultures of East and Southeast Asia.