Eduard Kögel: The Grand Documentation. Ernst Boerschmann and Chinese Religious Architecture (1906–1931), Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2015 (592 pages).

Ernst Boerschmann was the most influential foreign architectural researcher in China in the first half of the twentieth century. This book concerns his three-year research expedition through the Chinese Empire (1906–1909). He was the first Westerner to systematically document China’s religious architecture, returning from his travels with thousands of photographs, sketches, and architectural surveys. His six major publications leading up to 1931, described here alongside the reactions they caused, were milestones on the path to formal study of Chinese architectural history, long before Chinese academics themselves began to take interest in the subject in the 1930s.

Further publications:

Eduard Kögel: Networking for Monument Preservation in China. Ernst Boerschmann and the National Government in 1934, in Journal of Chinese Architectural History 10/2013, p. 339–372.

Eduard Kögel: Die chinesische Stadt im Spiegel von Ernst Boerschmanns Forschung (1902–1935). Von der religions-geografischen Verortung zur funktionalen Gliederung, in Forum Stadt, 4/2011, S. 357–370.

Eduard Kögel: Im Tempel der Azurblauen Wolken. China-Forscher Ernst Boerschmann rang lebenslang um das Verständnis der chinesischen Architektur, in tu-intern, 5/2011, (online reprint in Schattenblicke, 3.8.2011. Nachdruck in das neue china 3/11, S. 8–9, (unter dem Titel: Im „Tempel der Azurblauen Wolken“ Ernst Boerschmann, Chinaforscher und Architekt).

Eduard Kögel: Early German Research in Ancient Chinese Architecture (1900–1930), in Katja Levy (Hrsg.) Deutsch-chinesische Beziehungen. Berliner Chinahefte/Chinese History and Society, 2011, Nr. 39, S. 81–91.