Abstract: This paper takes misreading as an analytical lens to examine the production of knowledge about Chinese architecture in nineteenth-century Western architectural historiography. Focusing on the writings of Gottfried Semper, Charles Garnier, and Auguste Choisy, it investigates their interpretations of Chinese architecture, the sources on which they relied, and the intellectual contexts that shaped their views. It argues that these seemingly erroneous perceptions of Chinese architecture should not be understood merely as factual mistakes or misreadings in a narrow sense. Rather, they were deeply embedded in épistémè modern of the nineteenth century, constituted by comparative linguistics, biology, racialized conceptions of history, and early sinology. Owing to the absence of fieldwork, the three scholars relied heavily on an indirect network of knowledge composed of books, images, and architectural journals. Among the most important mediating institutions were the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Revue générale de l’architecture et des travaux publics. It contends that such misreading themselves became a crucial mechanism through which Chinese architecture entered the narrative of global architectural history.