mutual interrelationships between the living creatures and their biological, sociological and environmental surroundings). Nicolas Fiévé's approach differs, however, in that he always retains an architect's perspective and his historical analysis always supports the conception, underlying all his studies, that architecture first & foremost serves man. The research method Nicolas Fiévé gradually developed takes into account the architecture, spaces and landscape of parks and gardens together with the surrounding architectural and urban landscape. Thus his work L’architecture et la ville du Japon ancien (1996) shows that the mutations in space occurring in 14th and 15th centuries Kyōto follow a process similar to that occurring in palaces and in the composition of urban areal space wherein each sub-space (neighborhood, temple, shrine, palace, house, pavilion) represents an independent unit in which the same structural contrasts are reproduced . This work received the Mainichi Shibusawa-Claudel award and the Giles Prize from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and a laudatory review from Mack Horton (University of Berkeley). Following its publication, Nicolas Fiévé embarked on a research project that had been dear to his heart for many years: to compile a history of Kyōto combining the perspective of architectural anthropology he acquired from Katō Kunio with the historical and philological approach he inherited from Jacqueline Pigeot and Francine Hérail during his Japanese studies. In order to carry out this flagship project, Nicolas Fiévé assembled a joint team of French researchers in Japanese Civilization –including historians Paul Akamatsu, François Macé, Mieko Macé, Nathalie Kouamé, Francine Hérail, and Charlotte von Verschuer– and Japanese specialists in architecture and urbanism –including Katō Kunio, Takahashi Yasuo, Kōzai Katsuhiko, Hirao Kazuhiko, Sendai Shōichirō and Yamasaki Masafumi. He also rallied the support of the Prodig Laboratory of CNRS that created over two hundred original maps of Kyoto for the project, which, in addition, received sponsorship from the Toyota Foundation for Research, the CNRS, the French Ministry of Culture (Architecture and Heritage Department), the UNESCO, and the World Heritage fund. For the purposes of the project, Nicolas Fiévé returned to Kyoto in 2001 as a resident at the Kujōyama Villa in order to conduct in situ research on Kyōto's historical sites. The project, centering on the question of habitat, was developed in a broad historical perspective–from the city's origins to the present– and based on a comprehensive survey of the city's architecture and landscape. It resulted in the publication, in 2008, of the