Katsura. A Princely Retreat
1977réf. 50511Tokyo New York San Francisco: Kodansha International LTD 1977. First edition. Hardcover. near fine. Oblong Quarto. 182pp. Original silky-gray textured cloth with blind-stamped Japanese lettering on cover. Spine lettered in silver and faded to light brown with a small spot of fraying. Housed in publishers gray-green paper covered cardboard slipcase spine lettered in black. Black endpapers. First 82 pages entirely illustrated with color photographs most full-page. The remainder of the text is illustrated with numerous black & white photographs and topographic ground plans plus 14 pages of architectural drawings. Laid in at front is a 20" x 27" color folding map of "The Katsura Palace and Garden Today" scale: 1 inch = 12 meters. Double column text. Index and bibliography at rear. Slipcase with light sunning along edges. "In 1933 the German architect Bruno Taut 1880-1938 who had fled from the Nazis the year before arrived in Japan where he stayed for three years.Taut wrote "In Katsura denkt das Auge" - "At Katsura the eyes think." He was struck by the simplicity of the building by its apparent lack of ornamentation by its just proportions and by its spatial integration with the surrounding garden. These features seemed to him to accord perfectly with the aesthetic ideals of twentieth-century functionalism. Yet when one considers the Katsura Palace in the context of the Japanese architectural tradition it is difficult to say that Taut's assessment of it was adequate.In preparing this book we have attempted to rid ourselves of this preconceived notion and examine Katsura as it is. Our aim has been to start from scratch and arrive at an objective appraisal which would put the palace in proper perspective with regards to Japanese architecture as a whole. Takeshi Nishikawa spent nearly five years taking the photographs reproduced here. Kodansha International LTD hardcover books
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