Herbert Offen Research Collection

The Herbert Offen Research Collection focuses on Chinese furniture, architecture and gardens, with supporting sections that explore Japanese, Korean and South East Asian studies of like topics. In the spring of 2004, the Offen family made an initial gift of 490 books as well as generous funds to continue purchasing new, recently published and antiquarian books on these subjects. In two years the collection has grown to over 3,000 items and is now one of the finest research collections for scholars and enthusiasts in these fields. The donations have been made in memory of Herbert Offen, an inspiring and passionate devotee of Chinese culture, who resided in China for several years. Included in the Herbert Offen Research Collection are the 1925 Ernst Boerschmann two-volume setChinesische Architektur, Maurice Dupont's 1920’s studies of Chinese furniture, Chuta Ito’s beautifully photographed 1941 series on Chinese architectureShina Kenchiku Soshoku, Albert Nachbaur’sLes images populaires chinoises, 1926, Okuyama Tsunegorō’sPekin kōjō kenchiku sōshoku : fuzu hachijūyō Decoration of palace buildings of Peking. Meiji 39 [1906] George Louis Le Rouge’sJardins Anglois-Chinois et Jardins de la Mode 1776-1778, Emile Gsell’sMonuments Khmers, 1865, and the Wilma Fairbank papers. Also included in the collection is a very comprehensive selection of relevant books published in the last two decades in Chinese, Japanese, and English.

View the complete listing of this collection. (PDF format, 2.29 MB)