During the1920s and 1930s the American geographer Robert Burnett Hall (1896-1975) conducted pioneering research of Japanese cities, towns, and architecture. In Hall's studies, the interpretation of the built environment was based on the culture-nature relationship. But, the understanding of that relationship was being redefined during that period. The 19^th century assumption of the deterministic role of nature in the development of societies was changing to the possibilistic viewpoint, according to which nature sets certain constrains but does not determine culture. The following investigation shows how Hall's possibilistic standpoint results in the attribution of significant importance to cultural history in the interpretation of the built environment, while his geographic approach leads to an emphasis on areal distribution and functionality in the formal analysis.