Katsura: Imperial Villa

This book presents a detailed history of Katsura, the seventeenth-century Imperial Palace in Kyoto, Japan. Katsura is a pivotal work of Japanese architecture, often described as "the quintessence of Japanese taste." First revealed to the modern world of architecture by Bruno Taut, the great German architect, Katsura stunned and then excited the architectural community of the West during the early twentieth century. Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, pillars of the Modernist establishment, were among those fascinated by Katsura's "modernity." In its orthogonal and modular spaces, devoid of decoration, they saw clear parallels to contemporary Modernism, going so far to proclaim Katsura a "historical" example of modernity. This book documents the palace in detail, combining newly commissioned photographs, detailed drawings, archival material, and historical analysis.