1. Introduction<br> In Japan, building ventilation has historically been regarded as important, and its scientific research has relatively long history as well. Consequently, a large amount of knowledge has been accumulated in the research field to date. However, there are few literatures that organized the history of the scientific progress in ventilation research, which can cause a difficulty in discovering the issues and problems to be solved for scientists in this research field. Therefore, this paper reviews the literatures on building ventilation that have been published mainly in Japan of which ventilation research history can be found in architectural engineering, aiming to facilitate understanding of development and to help researchers contemplate the future work.<br><br> 2. Beginning of Ventilation Research in Japan and Maturity of the Scientific System<br> The scientific research on ventilation was first seen in the 1880s in Japan, and the measurement of natural ventilation rate using tracer gas was conducted by leading researchers who had learned in Germany. Ever since that time, it had been studied mainly as a part of public health until the 1920s. After that, many researchers in the building science also came to be involved in the building ventilation research, and many papers could also be seen in the AIJ transaction which started in 1936. In the early 1960s, the calculation method such as flow network model were developed, while materials for calculation like Cp values and p-Q curves for ventilation devices were organized as well. It is interpreted that the basis of the general theory and strategy regarding building ventilation design and calculation have been founded in the end of the 1960s through the activity of the committee in AIJ.<br><br> 3. Progress of Subdivided Ventilation Research Topic in the Contemporary Period<br> After the oil crisis in the 1970s, natural ventilation research was focused on considering energy saving. Many works of applied research can be seen in this period especially for residential buildings, and above-mentioned basic theory was utilized for research works. From this period, a wide range of research regarding building ventilation came to be seen in this field. The technique of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was well studied, and the calculation of the indoor 3-D turbulent flow was first seen in the middle of 1970s, which seemed to be a kind of breakthrough and there appeared many research works using CFD appeared in the 1980s. In this period, the 1980s, the topic of ventilation efficiency was also focused on. Several indices for ventilation efficiency assuming CFD use were proposed as well, and the index for ventilation efficiency has been studied to date. After the 2000s, many research works on natural ventilation for non-residential buildings have also been carried out, especially for high-rise office buildings. It has still not yet been organized systematically, but the knowledge has been accumulated in this field. The cross-ventilation have also been studied by many researchers. Several modelling methods to predict flow rate have been proposed, and fundamental research to understand detailed phenomenon have kept on going.<br><br> 4. Summary<br> The building ventilation research is interpreted to be a mature research field of which basis has almost been completed in the 1960s. Even after that, remarkable progress has been achieved to date, but in many studies, we are still utilizing a basic system of learning that was founded more than fifty years ago. There seems to be a possibility that we are restricted by a kind of common sense in thinking about research methodologies, which may not be necessary any more. Understanding the details of research progress seems important to discover new challenges in the field.