Katsura Imperial Villa A Brief Descriptive Bibliog

Katsura Imperial Villa: A Brief Descriptive Bibliography, with Illustrations
Dana Buntrock, University of California, Berkeley
There are three imperial residences in Kyoto: Gosho (京都御所), rebuilt in 1855 and used for for-
mal affairs even today; Shūgakuin1 (修学院離宮), a summer retreat on mountain slopes built in the
mid-seventeenth century; and Katsura Imperial Retreat (桂離宮), slightly older than Shūgakuin.
Upon the death of the Hachijō imperial line in 1881, Katsura came into the hands of the reigning
household; shortly afterward, the Imperial Household Ministry was formed and took responsibility
for the care of such sites. Sometimes grouped with the other residences, Nijō Palace was origi-
nally built not for the imperial household but for the warriors who effectively ruled Japan from
the seventeenth to the middle of the nineteenth century; today, it too is managed by the Imperial
Household Agency (the scope and name of the Imperial Household Ministry having changed at the
end of World War II). Of these four, Katsura, with its extensive grounds and esteemed teahouses
in addition to a large, shoin-style residence, is best known of all, used both at home and abroad to
illustrate arguments about architecture and national tradition. Yet even so, much remains to be said
about the complex, as demonstrated by this brief descriptive bibliography.
Early Shōwa (1928–1945)

The first extensive documentation on Katsura was a set of loose-leaf folios, published by subscrip-
tion under the auspices of the Imperial Household Ministry and dedicated to Baron Hideo Higa-
shikuze, who oversaw artisans in the building trades department of the ministry between 1924 and
1931.2 The folios were explicitly not for sale, but for study and research, a point made repeatedly in
a variety of ways throughout the folios. Today, the folios are quite rare; as a result, they have seldom
been referenced in subsequent publications.
Granted an unusual level of access by the ministry, Kawakami began conducting surveys in
autumn 1927, less than a year after the beginning of the Shōwa era. The first of the folios released
(which was, for reasons still not clear, actually the eighth in the series) included an invitation to
the elite subscribers—leading industrialists, tea enthusiasts, academics, and architects—to tour
another of the imperial residences in Kyoto, the Gosho, in late April 1928, or to arrange for a group
tour in May. In 1932, as the folios were completed, the text noted that there were only a few dozen
more than two hundred subscribers.
Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

E-Journal No. 3 (June 2012) • (http://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/e-journal/issue-3)
Buntrock 2
Editor Kunimoto Kawakami extended gratitude to faculty and students from the architec-
ture departments of Tokyo and Kyoto Imperial Universities, including thanking Kyoto Imperial
University students for their assistance in surveying, although he seems to have done much of the
drawing and photography himself. The extensive documentation for these folios vastly increased
the source material available for serious study, especially where Katsura was concerned. (Of the
573 sheets of photos and measured drawings of the four imperial residences—the shogunal Nijō
Palace was included—232, or 40 percent, involved Katsura. And of the 130 measured drawings
produced for the folios, 56, or 43 percent, also involved Katsura and its grounds.) The great atten-
tion to Katsura, often involving careful documentation of the smallest details, underscored that the
complex was an important part of the nation’s architectural heritage and worthy of more consider-
ation than it had been given in Japan’s modernizing era.
Today, Bruno Taut is generally credited with “discovering” Katsura in 1933, shortly after
the folios were completed. In addition to a published sketchbook, which focused exclusively on Kat-
sura, Taut included Katsura in several general-interest works. Using materials from the Kawakami
folios, he presented the complex as the penultimate example of Japanese domestic architecture in
the concluding chapter of his Houses and People of Japan (1937) and in a lecture to the Society for
International Cultural Relations, which was later published as a small booklet. Taut inaccurately
ascribed authorship of Katsura’s gardens and painted surfaces, but his more important contribution
was to focus greater attention on the complex in lectures and books published in Japanese, Ger-
man, and English. His reputation as a modernist led many to believe that the seventeenth-century
structure justified modernist approaches to architecture, although Taut did not hold this position,
fretting, “I had a conversation with some advanced architecture students of aesthetics in the Impe-
rial University of Tokyo, who… knew nothing of the existence of Katsura—and the penetration
of modern business into all the pores of Japanese culture menaces these last remains with a final
death.”3
(continued)

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Figures 1a and 1b (top), 2a and 2b (bottom). Taut’s Houses and People of Japan (1937) includes four
photographs from the fifth of the Kawakami folios released in November, 1928, including the two sepia-
colored images shown on the left, demonstrating Taut had direct access to Kawakami’s unpublished
materials. In addition, the shadows and other features of another photo (not shown here) suggest that it,
too, was taken at the same time as one in the Kawakami folios, but from a slightly different position.

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Figures 3a and 3b. The final chapter of Taut’s Houses

and People of Japan (1937), written for a general-
interest reader abroad, features Katsura as the epitome
of Japanese traditional expression. It includes a plan,
shown here, from the second of Kawakami folios
released in July, 1928.

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KAWAKAMI, Kunimoto / 川上邦基, ed. Kyōto Sentō Gosho, Nijō, Katsura, Shūgakuin
Rikyū oshashin oyobi jissokuzu / 京都仙洞御所・二條・桂・修學院離宮御寫眞及實測圖
[Photographs and Survey Drawings of the Katsura Imperial Retreat, Nijo Palace, and
Shūgakuin Imperial Retreat]. Tokyo: Kokenchiku oyobi Teien Kenkyūkai / 古建築及庭園研
究會 [Society for Research on Old Architecture and Gardens], originally published serially,
1928–1932.
Photographs and measured drawings (plans, sections, and elevations) of four significant
buildings under the care of the Imperial Household Agency were released by subscription
for educational and research purposes. In total, thirty-six folios were produced over four
years. Individual pages were titled in Japanese only for drawings, and in Japanese and
English for photography.
These folios were executed with a level of scholarly care rare even now. Each set also
included a Japanese-language explanatory page with a contents list and genial correspon-
dence from the editor. The seventh release included a small pocket book, with text suitable
for an educational tour of each site. The collected material was to be bound into books after
final short texts and a table of contents were sent to subscribers when documentation for
each building was completed; the publication title is thus catalogued inconsistently in col-
lections and bibliographies. However, even accounting for variation, I was able to identify
only a handful of complete collections in archives and libraries around the world.
Figure 4. View of the Goten at

Katsura. (Kawakami folio 2, no. 2).

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Taut, Bruno. Translated by Hideo SHINODA / 篠田英雄. Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura
Imperial Retreat]. Taut Zenshū 1 / タウト全集１. Tokyo: Ikuseishakōdōkaku / 育聖社弘道閣,
1942.
A Japanese translation of the original German-language, accordion-style sketchbook with

handwritten notes dating to 1933 and 1934. Shinoda edited a three-volume set of Taut’s
work, adding commentary; the 1942 publication was the first volume. (An earlier, 1934 edi-
tion of Taut’s sketchbook may have been published by Meiji Shoin.) The publisher Iwanami
Shoten produced two boxed facsimiles of the sketchbook in 1981 (a limited edition of eight
hundred copies that retails today for two to three thousand dollars) and again in 2004. Iwa-
nami’s extensive archive on Taut is held by the private Sōzō Gakuen University in Gunma
Prefecture.
Occupied Japan and the Immediate Postwar Era (1945–1959)

Because of its rich architectural legacy, Kyoto, Katsura’s home, was spared the devastating fire
bombing most Japanese cities experienced. During the U.S. occupation that followed the war’s
end and the subsequent Cold War, Japan’s traditional arts were used as a basis for international
exchange on both sides of the Pacific; Kyoto’s architecture was understandably employed to this
end. Katsura’s story—a retreat for a young prince who had been a pawn between the shogunate
and the imperial household—resonated. Teiji Itō’s 1956 article, “The Katsura Villa: A Flower Out
of Season,” contrasted Katsura with Nijō Palace, a strategy also seen in Tetsurō Watsuji’s writings
on Katsura.4 The trajectory culminated in Naomi Ōkawa’s 1964 comparison of Katsura and the
shogunate mausoleum at Nikkō; Ōkawa described the two complexes as representing divergent
architectural traditions: Katsura, a setting for Japanese gentility; the shrines at Nikkō, “Chinese.”5
An approach that might be considered related elided questions of class or historical hierar-
chies, simply presenting Katsura as a visual feast, with minimal discussion: three books (and two
pamphlets by Teizo Niwa, associated with the Imperial Household Ministry) followed the model
established in the Kawakami folios, relying heavily on photographic documentation and measured
drawings with bilingual captions, and adding only abbreviated foreign-language text.
Increasing interest in traditional Japanese culture both at home and abroad was evident in
the number of texts on Katsura published in the postwar era: eight books were produced between
1945 and 1959 by leading figures in the fields of architecture, photography, and philosophy—with
at least two of these books, the Mainichi newspapers and the Chūō Kōran, involving publishers
with political concerns. Another respected German visitor, Harvard’s Walter Gropius, offered his
endorsement of Katsura’s importance in a short Japanese-language text for Osamu Mori.
Sutemi Horiguchi’s 1953 volume was the first to balance two very different audiences, with
left-handed binding for the English text and a traditional right-handed binding for the Japanese ver-
sion, allowing two front covers of equal weight. Horiguchi originally developed this strategy before
the war, for German-Japanese monographs on his own work, but it was subsequently adopted by
others writing for both audiences on Katsura.

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FUJISHIMA Gaijirō / 藤島亥治郎. Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura Imperial Retreat].

Tokyo: Banchō Shobō / 番町書房, 1946.
In Japanese only. Extravagantly illustrated with large photographs; a few foldout mea-
sured drawings of the complex appear to be from the Kawakami folios. This book, like
many subsequent publications in the immediate aftermath of World War II, was inclined
to mythologize both the history of Katsura and its value to foreign experts; the very first
paragraph remarked on the interest foreigners demonstrated toward the complex. Fujishima
was a professor at what was then Tokyo Imperial University and published elsewhere with
Kunimoto Kawakami, editor of the folios that head this bibliography.
TAKAKUWA, Gisei / 高桑義生. Katsura Sansō / 桂山荘 [Katsura, Mountain Retreat].

Kyoto, “Printed in Occupied Japan:” Unsodo [Unsōdō / 芸艸堂], given as Shōwa Yr. 22 in
Japanese [1947], but as 1948 in English. Photography by Toyo OKAMOTO / 岡本東洋.
Delicate letterpress printing on Japanese washi paper underscores the emphasis on tradi-
tion over industry. In Japanese with an English précis and informative English-language
captions, this was the first book designed to appeal to both Japanese and non-Japanese
readers—understandably, as it was printed during the U.S. occupation of Japan.
MORI, Osamu/ 森蘊(著). Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura Imperial Retreat]. Tokyo: Sōgen-
Sha / 創元社, Shōwa Yr. 26 [1951].
In Japanese only, with a bibliography, a first for publications on Katsura. Mori became one
of the twentieth century’s authorities on Katsura. His lengthy, unillustrated article pub-
lished in 1942 in the journal Kenchikushi (Architectural history), “Katsura Gobetsugyō
no Ki ni Tsuite / 桂御別業之記について” (On the rural retreat Katsura) surveyed archival
materials on Katsura’s construction and featured a précis of major architecture and land-
scape architecture elements. The book also included detailed plans and unusual diagrams,
such as those showing the azimuth of the rising moon on certain dates; the use of climate to
justify architectural differences was seen in both Japanese and German twentieth-century
discourse.
Some or all of the photography was by Kenzō Shiose, but is uncredited. Mori further
developed the text for the 1955 Katsura Rikyū no Kenkyū / 桂離宮の研究 [Research on
the Katsura Imperial Retreat]. Tokyo: Tōto Bunka Shuppan Kabushiki Kaisha / 東都
文化出版株式會社, 1955. Photography by Kenzō Shiose/ 汐瀬謙藏, published in Japa-
nese with an English-language synopsis, and strategically employed the English-Japanese
back-to-back format that took advantage of the directional differences in writing systems

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to avoid prioritizing either text. The 1955 book also included a single-page introduction in
Japanese, written by Walter Gropius while in Kyoto in June 1954, implicitly recalling the
late Bruno Taut’s enthusiasm for Katsura and using international appreciation to argue for
the importance of Japanese tradition. Gropius would later write for a 1960 book on Katsura
involving architect Kenzo Tange and photographer Yasuhiro Ishimoto.
HORIGUCHI, Sutemi / 堀口捨己. The Katsura Imperial Villa / Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮.
Tokyo, Osaka and Moji: The Mainichi Newspapers, 1953. Photography by Tatsuzo SATŌ /
佐藤辰三.
A numbered, limited edition of two thousand copies, printed by a major newspaper. This
seems to be the earliest book on Katsura that specifically acknowledged a photographer on
the title page, a practice that soon became the norm; Satō’s photography was also used in a
1961 book involving the former editor of Japan Architect (新建築), Noboru Kawazoe.
Japanese with English synopsis by Jiro Harada / 原田二郎. Horiguchi, an interna-
tionally acclaimed modernist architect, sat out World War II in isolated retreat, studying
Japan’s teahouse traditions and shunning practice. The book is scrupulous in addressing
Figure 5 (above). Horiguchi cover. The earliest example

of a technique used in a number of bilingual books on
Katsura, with left-handed binding for the English text
and a traditional right-handed binding for the Japanese
version, allowing two front covers of equal weight.
Figure 6 (right). Horiguchi numbered certificate.
Several editions are numbered, implying that, like fine
art, they are of greater value than competing commercial
products.

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conflicting perspectives on Katsura’s history and attempting to sort myth from fact (though
this is not evident in the English synopsis). One of Horiguchi’s key contributions is a brief
section on the authorship of the building and its parts, which soon concerned Tetsurō Wat-
suji, who relied on Horiguchi for advice. The English-language synopsis is brief, but the
photographs and maps all have bilingual captions and keys, making them equally acces-
sible to readers in Japanese and English.
NIWA, Teizo / 丹羽鼎三(著) / Written in English as Tayzaw NIWA. Katsura Rikyū no

Niwadōrō / 桂離宮の庭燈籠 [Katsura Imperial Retreat’s Garden-Lanterns]. Tokyo:
Shōkoku-Sha / 彰国社, 1953.
NIWA, Teizo / 丹羽鼎三(著) / Written in English as Tayzaw NIWA. Katsura Rikyū no

Tobi’ishi / 桂離宮の飛石 [Katsura Imperial Retreat’s Steppingstones]. Tokyo: Shōkoku-Sha
/ 彰国社, 1955.
Niwa was a garden scholar, part of the Tokyo Imperial University faculty in the early Shōwa
period. These two slim booklets painstakingly surveyed ornamental landscape elements,
described in Japanese with an English synopsis. The first booklet included an essay titled
“The Garden-Lanterns in the Katsura Palace” and exhaustively illustrated each lantern in
the garden. The companion volume surveyed each stepping stone, with detailed maps of
some sections, and tallied the numbers of stepping stones in specific areas.
WATSUJI, Tetsurō / 和辻哲郎(著). Katsura Rikyū: Seisaku Katei no Kōsatsu/桂離宮 : 制作過

程の考察 [Katsura Imperial Retreat: A Close Examination of the Time of its Construction].
Tokyo: Chūō Kōron-Sha, 1955. Photography by Yoshio WATANABE; measured drawings
by Sutemi HORIGUCHI.
In Japanese only. This text was loosely structured, organized as if Watsuji were strolling
through the gardens with the reader, pointing out aesthetic features and historical reso-
nances along the way. A leading scholar on Japanese ancient culture in the early twentieth
century, Watsuji had been a strong supporter of the imperial system before the war; this
was written shortly after he published a postwar criticism of Japanese isolation by the sho-
gunate. Notably opening with the pairing of shogunate buildings at Nikkō and Katsura,
Watsuji rejected the ornate characteristics of the former and praised the more moderate
architectural approach of the latter. In writing these books, Watsuji relied on Sutemi Hori-
guchi (a highly regarded modernist architect) for measured drawings, and on the esteemed
Yoshio Watanabe for photography.

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When Tokyo University professor Hirotarō Ōta, a prolific and respected scholar
in his own right, offered a thorough criticism of the 1955 book in the journal Kenchikushi
Kenkyū / 建築史研究 (Architectural history research), Watsuji went on to make significant
revisions to his earlier work in order to address the architectural issues raised. It was repub-
lished under the title:
WATSUJI, Tetsurō. Katsura Rikyū: Yōshiki no Haigo wo Saguru / 桂離宮 :
様式の背後を探る [Katsura Imperial Retreat: Research into the Background of its
Style] Tokyo: Chūō Kōron-Sha, 1958. Photography by Yoshio WATANABE; mea-
sured drawings by Sutemi HORIGUCHI.
SHIMADA, Kan’ichirō / 島田貫一郎, photographer. Katsura Rikyū: Shimada Kan’ichirō

shashinshū / 桂離宮 : 島田貫一郎写真集 [Katsura Imperial Retreat: Kan’ichirō
SHIMADA’s Collected Photography]. Tokyo: Iwasaki Shoten / 岩崎書店, 1959. With essays
by Hirotarō ŌTA / 太田博太郎 (architecture) and Seidai (sometimes incorrectly given as
“Masahiro”) TANAKA / 田中正大 (landscape).
In Japanese only. The first bound book on Katsura explicitly described as being a collection
of photography; most effective at presenting architecture and landscape as integrated.
Japan in the World (1960–1980)

By the late 1950s, Japan began to revive its international tourism industry; the volume of overseas
visitors would grow rapidly through the early 1970s, boosted first by the 1964 Olympics and then the
1970 Osaka International Exposition. Publication on Katsura flourished, reflecting this expanding
international interest in Japanese traditions: a 1961 folio published by Bijutsu Shuppansha (美術出
版社), with color plates tipped in, was captioned not in English, but in French; the first commercial
guidebook in English on Katsura was published in 1962 (as well as a separate Japanese-language
edition); and in 1970 a volume published in Spain included text in four Western languages (uncon-
vincingly uniting Katsura and Daitokuji). Of the fifteen primary texts published in this period, all
but one incorporated a Western language or was published in a separate translation.
One of the most important books in this period was the 1960 Katsura: Tradition and Cre-
ation in Japanese Architecture, a collaboration between the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange and
a young Japanese American photographer, Yasuhiro Ishimoto. It was the first to be published in
separate Japanese and English editions, the latter from the prestigious Yale University Press. How-
ever, the opening lines (“This book does not tell everything there is to tell about the Katsura Palace.
It is neither a definitive introduction nor a historical study.”6) demonstrated that, even here, graphic
information took precedence over scholarship, with a polemic that contributed to the book’s suc-
cess. Its photography and book design emphasized a powerful modernist abstraction, effectively
marrying Katsura’s architecture to a twentieth-century Bauhaus-inspired aesthetic, and suggesting
modernism to be timeless, too.

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The book was an exception for the period; in fact, it might have been produced at the
last possible moment when the use of black-and-white photography would not appear affected.
Most volumes from this time exploited the increasing economic accessibility of color photography
and offset lithography, which, together, allowed for the production of sumptuous, full-color “art
books” by publishers focusing on the sector: Zōkeisha (造形社), Bijutsu shuppan-sha (美術社),
Heibon-sha (平凡社), and Shōgakkan (小学館). Geared to the mass market, these books proffered
lush photography printed in overscaled formats, incorporating often-perfunctory text. Publishers
also produced multivolume encyclopedias surveying Japan’s most important architectural heritage,
naturally including Katsura and its gardens. The pinnacle of this lavish approach was a 1970 book
that returned to the larger grouping of imperial residences surveyed by Kawakami half a century
before, Imperial Gardens of Japan: Sento Gosho, Katsura, Shugakuin finished in purple silk and
gold leaf, and including essays by some of Japan’s most respected authors. While Katsura’s archi-
tectural beauty and fall foliage provided ample reason for the use of color photography, the increas-
ingly opulent character of these volumes also seemed to underscore Japan’s growing economic
confidence and reemergent comfort with its imperial history.
TANGE, Kenzo. Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture / Katsura:

Nihon Kenchiku ni Okeru Dentō to Sōzō / 桂 — 日本建築における傳統と創造. New Haven:
Yale University Press and Tokyo: Zokeisha / 造型社出版, 1960. With an introductory essay
by Walter Gropius and photography by Yasuhiro ISHIMOTO. Design by Herbert Bayer.
In the two-and-a-half pages of text Tange actually dedicated to Katsura, he referenced

two scholars, Tetsurō Watsuji and Osamu Mori; oddly, the esteemed Dr. Mori’s name is
written as “Atsushi Mori.” This underscores Tange’s strange and sketchy scholarship, but
the book was a blockbuster; it went into seven printings and is often found in the libraries
of leading architects around the world a full five decades later. In a recent interview, Ishi-
moto claimed that Sutemi Horiguchi also offered behind-the-scenes translation support for
Tange’s 1960 volume. Jointly released in Japanese and English, both publishers were listed
in each language’s edition. The English text was likely translated by Charles S. Terry, as
it is fundamentally the same as a later edition that credits him. Revised in 1971, the Tange
book had less graphic punch. Gropius, oddly, was also cut from the new volume, with no
explanation other than a reference to his recent demise.
(continued)

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Figure 7. Detail of the New Palace.

An example of the manner in which
Ishimoto’s Bauhaus-influenced
photography, carefully cropped,
abstracted Katsura’s strongly
geometric structural system; the effect
was heighted by the elegant book
design. This collaboration became
the centerpiece of a 2010 catalogue
published by the Museum of Fine
Art, Houston. (Tange 1960:17).
TANGE, Kenzō / 丹下健三(著). Katsura : Nihon Kenchiku ni Okeru Dentō to Sōzō / 桂。日
本建築における伝統と創造 [Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture]
Tokyo: Chūō Kōron-Sha / 中央公論社, 1971. Photography by Yasuhiro ISHIMOTO / 石元泰
博, design by Yusaku KAMEKURA / 亀倉雄策.
Released in English as:
TANGE, Kenzo. Translated by Charles S. Terry. Katsura: Tradition and Creation in

Japanese Architecture, Redesigned Edition New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1972. Photography by Yasuhiro ISHIMOTO, design by Yusaku KAMEKURA.
UMESAO, Tadao / 梅棹忠夫 and Noboru KAWAZOE / 川添登. Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮
[Katsura Imperial Retreat]. Kyoto: Tanko Shin-Sha / 淡交新社, 1961. Photography by
Tatsuzo SATŌ / 佐藤辰三.
In Japanese; synopsis in English titled “The Katsura Imperial Villa,” by Kiyoshi Yokoi.
Umesao, a cultural anthropologist, placed Katsura within the context of Kyoto’s other resi-
dences, but he also followed several tropes shared by architects writing on Katsura, lengthy

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historical discussion mirroring Taut’s concern with creative architectural will. The clean
graphic character of the Tange volume seems to have influenced the photography here. (It
is possible that Umesao’s ideas regarding cultural evolution influenced Tange’s otherwise
peculiar discourse on ancient history published earlier.)
YANAGI, Ryō / 柳亮. Katsura / 桂. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha / 美術出版社, 1961.

Photography by Shihachi FUJIMOTO / 藤本四八.
In Japanese with very limited captioning in French. Color plates tipped in, the earliest use
of color printing on Katsura; the book was also numbered. Yanagi repeated a position oth-
ers, like Horiguchi, made, arguing that his ability to fully appreciate Katsura emerged only
after he had spent time abroad. An English-language supplement, translated by George
Saito and edited by Walter E. Morgan, was included in a slipcase for the international
market.
YUKAWA, Osamu / 湯川制. Katsura no Rikyū: Dentō to Sōzō to no Zōkeiteki na Tsuitaiken

/ 桂の離宮 : 伝統と創造との造形的な追体験 [Katsura Imperial Retreat: Emerging from
the Art of Tradition and from Individual Creative Acts]. Tokyo: Ikubun-Sha / 郁文社, 1961.
Photography by Takeshi NISHIKAWA / 西川驍, Toshio OYAMA / 大山俊夫, and Takeshi
OZAWA / 小沢健志.
In Japanese, with an English essay entitled “Katsura Detached Palace” and English-lan-
guage captions. Used a back-to-back English-Japanese format. Mixed monochrome and
color photography; also included a number of axial diagrams and analyses of the arrange-
ment of stones or other garden and architectural ornaments. The extensive text on composi-
tion and visual relationships seems precociously concerned with applying fine arts analysis
to Katsura.
WADA, Kunihei. Translated by Thomas I. Elliott. Katsura, Imperial Villa, Color Books no.
1. Osaka: Hoiku-Sha, 1962.
The first guidebook on Katsura in a “modern, European” language; a pocket-size volume

written for cultured visitors, reviewing the architecture and history of Katsura. Photogra-
phy by the author. Wada made the point that it was only after repeated visits to Katsura with
students that he was allowed a photography permit, highlighting the privilege Ishimoto
enjoyed in the postwar climate, when he had been able to photograph Katsura for a full
month. Published the same year in Japanese as:

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Wada, Kunihei / 和田邦平. Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮, Karaa Bukkusu / カラーブックス no.
2. Osaka: Hoiku-Sha / 保育社, 1962.
ŌKAWA, Naomi / 大河直躬. Katsura to Nikkō / 桂離宮と日光 [Katsura and Nikko]. Nihon
no Bijutsu 20 / 日本の美術20 [Japan’s Beauty, no. 20]. Tokyo: Heibon-Sha / 平凡社, 1964.
Original in Japanese only. Not as strange as some pairings: Katsura and the Tōshōgū mau-
soleum in Nikkō were built around the same time and were for a time thought to have
involved some of the same elite artisans. This postwar text used the two structures to rep-
resent an imperial household in quiet retreat during the Edo period, when the nation was
dominated by samurai warriors, suggesting a similarly passive role during World War II.
Later published in English as:
ŌKAWA, Naomi. Translated Alan Woodhull and Akito MIYAMOTO. Edo Archi-
tecture: Katsura and Nikko, Heibonsha Survey of Japanese Art, vol. 20. New York:
Weatherhill, 1975. Photographs by Chuji HIRAYAMA.
Figure 8. Ōkawa cover. These two remarkable

architectural complexes from roughly the same
era were used in the postwar period to underscore
political divisions between the shogunate and the
Imperial household.
Figure 9. Ōkawa’s text and graphics argued that
Katsura’s understated refinement was in direct
opposition to the gaudy excesses of the warrior
class. (Ōkawa 1975: 20-1).

Buntrock 15
FUJIOKA Michio / 藤岡, 通夫(著). Katsura Rikyū. Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Bijutsu Shuppan-
Sha/中央公論美術出版社, 1965. Measured drawings “donated” by Osamu MORI / 森蘊;
photographs by Kiyoe HASEGAWA / 長谷川清衛。
The book’s careful scholarship and excellent photography evolved from a version published
serially in an internationally oriented English-language magazine on Japanese architecture:
FUJIOKA Michio. “The Katsura Detached Palace,” Japan Architect. Published in

three parts: (July, 1965) n. 110, p. [85]-94; (August, 1965) n. 111, p. 85-[94]; and (Sep-
tember, 1965) n. 112, p. [87]-96.
Photography was credited to Yasuhiro Ishimoto and Yukio Futagawa, both under
the employ of Japan Architect. The same measured drawings were used in the book and in
the articles.
Konishiroku Photo Ind. Co., Ltd. a.k.a Konishiroku Shashin Kōgyō / 小西六写真工業株
式会社. The Kyoto Imperial Palace and Imperial Villas / Kyō: Gosho Rikyū / 京 : 御所離宮.
[Tokyo] © Kunaicho Jozō / 宮内庁所蔵 [Imperial Household Agency], c. 1965.
In Japanese and English. A slim pamphlet whose most notable characteristic is that it was
used to promote a new color film and was, for the first time since the Kawakami folios,
published by the Imperial Household Agency.
KAWAKAMI, Mitsugu / 川上貢(著) and Masao NAKAMURA / 中村昌生(著). Katsura

Rikyū to Chashitsu / 桂離宮と茶室 [Katsura Imperial Retreat and Its Teahouses] Genshoku
Nihon no Bijutsu 原色日本の美術 [Japan’s Colorful Beauty] vol. 15. Tokyo: Shōgakkan / 小
学館, 1967.
In Japanese with captioning in English. Large-format book, a visual feast, integrating archi-
tectural detail into an unusually large-scale context. Used plans very effectively to discuss
specific sections of the book with a sense of intimate knowledge. A Japanese-only pocket
book, based on the same material, was released four years later:
KAWAKAMI, Mitsugu / 川上貢. Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura Imperial Retreat].

“Book of Books,” Nihon no Bijutsu [The Beauty of Japan], no. 20. Tokyo: Shogakkan
/ 小学館, 1971.

Buntrock 16
NAITŌ, Akira / 内藤昌. Shin Katsura Rikyū Ron / 新桂離宮論 [New Theories on Katsura
Imperial Retreat]. Tokyo: SD Sensho 12 / 選書12, Kajima Shuppan-Sha / 鹿島出版社, 1967.
In Japanese, with few illustrations. A scholarly overview that carefully described Katsura’s
architecture, with reference to its literary and historical background. Takeshi Nishizawa
spent five years photographing Katsura, and Naitō first surveyed it from 1961 to 1965. With
an emphasis on social and cultural history, it is a very readable and richly illustrated book,
which incorporated measured drawings and a large foldout plan of Katsura as an insert.
NAITO, Akira. Translated Charles S. Terry. Katsura: A Princely Retreat. New York: Ko-
dansha, 1977. Photographs by Takeshi NISHIKAWA.
Vallès, J. Prat, ed. Daitokuji Katsura. Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa and New York: Tudor
Publishing, 1970. Essay by Maria Lluïsa Borràs and photography by Yukio FUTAGAWA.
In Spanish, English, French, and German. A Kyoto temple compound and Katsura made an
odd combination, but this was not a scholarly book. (It, and the following volumes from the
same year, may have been intended to take advantage of the many foreign tourists expected
to visit Kyoto during the 1970 Osaka Expo. Photographs were by one of Japan’s leading
architectural photographers, Yukio Futagawa.
ISHIKAWA, Tadashi. Imperial Villas of Kyoto: The Katsura and Shugaku-in. This
Beautiful World, vol. 21. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1970. Photography by Bin
TAKAHASHI.
Later published in Japanese as:
ISHIKAWA, Tadashi / 石川忠(著). Kyōto no Rikyū: Katsura, Shūgakuin / 京都の離

宮 : 桂、修学院 [Kyoto Imperial Retreats: Katsura, Shūgakuin]. Kyoto: 大原出版企
画 / Ōhara Shuppan Kikaku and Dentō Bunka Hozon Kyōkai 伝統文化保存協会 / As-
sociation of Kyoto Traditional Culture Foundation, 1973.
Ishikawa headed the Imperial Household Agency’s Kyoto offices and chaired the board of
directors for the Association of Kyoto Traditional Culture Foundation. The organization
keeps in print a pamphlet developed later from this material, on Katsura only; it can be
ordered over the Internet for five hundred yen (a bargain!) at http://Kyoto-dentobunka.jp/
brochures.html.

Buntrock 17
ITOH, Teiji. Translated by Richard L. Gage and Akira FURUTA. Ralph Friedrich,
ed. Imperial Gardens of Japan: Sento Gosho, Katsura, Shugakuin. New York: Walker /
Weatherhill, 1970. With essays by Yukio MISHIMA, Yasushi INOUE, and Jiro OSARAGI,
and a foreword by Loraine Kuck. Photography by Takeji IWAMIYA.
Compiled and translated from a three-volume set published only in Japanese:
ITŌ Teiji, et al. Kyūtei no Niwa / 宮廷の庭 [Gardens of the Imperial Household]. Kyoto:
Tankō Shin-Sha / 淡交新社, 1968.
Gorgeous, oversized book, finished in silk and gold. In addition to Itō’s architectural de-
scriptions, three novelists each described an experience in an imperial garden, avatars for
the reader; Mishima’s, on Sentō Gosho, was particularly fine. No expense was spared in the
production of this book, which went into five printings in English.
MORI, Osamu. Katsura Imperial Villa: Photo Collection Tokyo: Mainichi Newspapers,
1970.
In Japanese and English. Tall and fat, full of photographs, but not finely printed. Likely
intended as a souvenir for the large number of international visitors who would be drawn to
the region by the Osaka International Exposition.
SAITŌ, Hidetoshi. 斎藤英俊. Kinsei Kyūtei no Bijutsu : Katsura, Shūgakuin to Kyōto Gosho /
近世宮廷の美術：桂、修学院と京都御所 [The Imperial Household in Recent Times: Katsura,
Shūgakuin, and the Kyoto Imperial Palace], Nihon Bijutsu Zenshū Dai19maki / 日本美術全
集第19巻 [Collection of Japan’s Beauty, no. 19]. Tokyo: Gakushū Kenkyūsha / 学習研究社 /
GAKKEN, 1979.
In Japanese only. Large format, with color printing, but formulaic.
Renewal (1981–2001)
Although the Imperial Household Ministry attentively maintained Katsura from the 1880s forward,
maintenance was piecemeal and reactive. In 1976 (Shōwa 51), the ministry began an extensive
renovation of Katsura’s large residential structure, Goten, that ended in 1982; renovations of the
smaller teahouses in Katsura’s gardens began three years later and continued until 1991 (Heisei 2).
Thus, great attention would be given to Katsura throughout the long period of Emperor Shōwa’s
reign.

Buntrock 18
Documentation laying the ground for these renovations began in 1972; the following year
oil prices jumped, initiating a global economic downturn; this is likely one reason Katsura’s reno-
vations proceeded discretely. The economy also affected architectural practice in this period, and
the field turned inward, emphasizing drawing over construction. Architects and scholars working
with the leading professional journal in the field (Japan Architect / 新建築), squandered an oppor-
tunity offered by these renovations: resulting publications featured extensive measured drawings
of spaces in an obscure axonometric style fashionable at the time, with only limited attention to
the careful preservation or to craft involved in the work. Unlike in the previous era, there was less
concern for the international market.
The best volumes on the restorations were published in Japanese, often in limited editions that
remain hard to find. The Imperial Household Agency initiated its own publications on the renovations:
two volumes scrupulously documenting building conditions through photography and measured
drawings, a few of which were deposited in major national archives and leading libraries. These also
informed several other books highlighting the processes of construction and the unusual level of care
taken in restoring Katsura. The best is a 1995 volume that extensively documented the changing state
of each building during the restoration process, featuring essays by several authors with significant
expertise, including Kakichi Suzuki, associated with the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and Yasunobu
Tatebe, of the Institute of Traditional Japanese Architecture (日本建築専門学校).
The renovations took the better part of two decades, ending in Japan’s economically exu-
berant bubble era. Their completion produced a flurry of large, beautifully illustrated coffee-table
books; the most commercially successful of these was also the earliest, coming out in 1983, shortly
after the first stage of renovations. It involved Arata Isozaki, a leading Japanese architect, and Ya-
suhiro Ishimoto, the photographer who had produced the 1960 book with Isozaki’s mentor, Kenzo
Tange. Ultimately published in English, French, Italian, and German editions, Isozaki’s text ag-
gressively challenged the two stories that had emerged around Katsura—the use of tradition, which
had highlighted Katsura as a peaceful symbol of political retreat, and interpretations involving Taut
and the Tange group that argued for the timeless nature of modernist aesthetics. Instead, Isozaki
embraced Katsura’s rich materialism, in a clearly Oedipal stance. Goading Ishimoto to use color
photography as a way to repudiate his earlier collaboration with Tange, Isozaki was the first author
who consciously turned discourse on Katsura inward on itself. Kenji Miyamoto, in a similar spirit,
would soon offer a close study of Taut’s time in the gardens.
HAYASHIYA, Tatsusaburō / 林屋辰三郎(著). Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura Imperial

Retreat]. Tokyo: 岩波グラフィックス 1 / Iwanami Graphics 1, 1982. Photography by Yasuhiro
ISHIMOTO / 石元泰博.
A slim, unassuming hardcover mixing black-and-white photography from Ishimoto’s initial

visit in 1954 and color photography from 1981 and 1982; thirty-six monochrome and thirty
color photographs—Ishimoto’s best work—blended in a very casual manner. Nearly all the

Buntrock 19
black-and-white images were also found in the 1960 volume with Tange and nearly all the
color would also be included in a large 1983 volume published with Arata Isozaki. The book
was likely intended as a souvenir, but the printing quality was higher than in either of the
more expensive and elaborate publications. Elegant endpapers, front and back, featured ad-
ditional monochrome images. A short accompanying essay in Japanese written by a leading
historian modestly followed Ishimoto’s photographs.
Shinkenchiku (July, 1982) Special supplementary issue: Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura
Imperial Retreat]. With articles by Teiji ITŌ / 伊藤ていじ, Shōchirō OBATA/ 小幡祥一郎,
Kakichi SUZUKI / 鈴木嘉吉 and Yoshiaki KUDŌ / 工藤圭章監修.
The first comprehensive publication after Katsura’s extensive restoration, published by one
of Japan’s leading architectural publishers. Very limited text, with discussion on the build-
ings and gardens that did not differ significantly from what had been written before the
renovations; the focus was on the completed buildings, not the process or insights resulting
from the extensive renovations. Diagrams highlighted structural frames, interior shadow,
and envelope opacity (translucent shōji or opaque doors), but the book was marred by ex-
cessive reliance on then-fashionable axonometric drawings.
SHOZO, Baba, ed. Translation by Richard L. Gage. Katsura: A Quintessential Repre-

sentative of the Sukiya Style of Architecture. Tokyo: Shinkenchiku-Sha, 1983. Essays
by Teiji ITOH, Kakichi SUZUKI, Shōchirō OBATA and Yoshiaki KUDŌ. Additional
commentary by Tadashi YOKOYAMA, Makoto SUZUKI and Eiji MUSHA; photog-
raphy by Masao ARAI and Taisuke OGA.
Figure 10. Documentation of Katsura’s

restoration by architects was done
in an axonometric style fashionable
at the time, with the expectation
that it would better express the
spatial and geometric artistry of the
interiors. (Shozo 1983: 68-69).`

Buntrock 20
Then republished in a hardcover Japanese volume as:
Teiji ITŌ / 伊藤ていじ, et al. Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura Imperial Retreat].
Tokyo: Shinkenchiku-Sha / 新建築社, 1996.
FUJIOKA, Michio. Translated by Bruce A. Coats. Kyoto Country Retreats: The Shugakuin
and Katsura Palaces. Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International, 1983. Photography by
Shigeo OKAMOTO.
Followed the conventions of coffee-table books.
ISOZAKI, Arata / 磯崎新. Katsura Rikyū : kūkan to katachi / 桂離宮 : 空間と形 [Katsura
Imperial Retreat: Space and Form]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten / 岩波書店, 1983. Photography
by Yasuhiro ISHIMOTO / 石元泰博; Explanatory essays by Arata ISOZAKI / 磯崎新, Isao
KUMAKURA / 熊倉功, and Osamu SATŌ / 佐藤理.
After an absence of thirty years, Yasuhiro Ishimoto returned to Katsura twice, in Novem-
ber 1981 and February 1982, to document its extensive restoration with color film. Isozaki’s
essay highlighted the very aspects of Katsura that his mentor, Kenzo Tange, expunged,
underscoring not only changes in architectural interest, but also the younger architect’s
conflicted relationship with his teacher: “We shall eliminate any sort of Bauhaus-type
analysis. We shall use those parts of the palace that have been neglected in former studies
to illuminate our method. In particular, we shall take into serious consideration those bril-
liant, gorgeous, sometimes gaudy elements of taste and style…” (3). Ultimately published in
Japanese, English, German, French, and Italian. The English version was:
ISOZAKI, Arata. Translated by John D. Lamb. Katsura Villa: The Ambiguity of Its
Space. New York: Rizzoli, 1987. Photography by Yasuhiro ISHIMOTO, and notes by
Osamu SATŌ. Postscript by Yasuhiro ISHIMOTO.
(continued)

Buntrock 21
Figure 11 (left). This volume emphasized the rich materiality

resulting from the first phase of Katsura’s extensive restoration.
(Isozaki 1983:37).
Figure 12 (above). An example of the graphic work in this
volume, which was fashionable at the time. Axonometrics were
believed to be particularly useful at depicting geometries and
spatial relationships. (Isozaki 983: 70-71).
Imperial Household Agency / 宮内庁 (Kunaichō). Katsura Rikyū Goten seibi kiroku / 桂離
宮御殿整備記錄 [Records of the restoration of Katsura Imperial Villa’s Main structure].
Tokyo: Kunaichō / 宮内庁, 1987.
Imperial Household Agency / 宮内庁 (Kunaichō). Katsura Rikyū chashitsu tō seibi kiroku / 桂
離宮御殿整備記錄 [Records of the restoration of Katsura Imperial Villa’s teahouses, etc.].
Tokyo: Kunaichō / 宮内庁, 1992.
In Japanese. For anyone interested in the exacting restoration of Katsura, these volumes
remain indispensable. They include extensive cataloging of the state of the structures before
work was done; photographs of the buildings during restoration and some work in progress;
and plans, sections, and details of the completed work. They also list the artisans involved
in reconstruction and the specific materials and finishes used.

Buntrock 22
ŌKAWA, Naomi / 大河直躬. Katsura to Tōshogū / 桂離宮と東照宮 [Katsura and Nikko’s

Toshogu]. Nihon Bijutu Zenshū Dai16maki / 日本美術全集第16巻 [Collected Works of
Japanese Beauty, no. 16]. Tokyo: Kōdan-Sha / 講談社, 1991.
In Japanese. Following the extensive restoration of Katsura, Ōkawa’s book once again
paired Nikkō’s buildings and Katsura. The texts, however, were more concerned with the
buildings as an expression of the construction arts than as political symbolism. Essays
started with a broad discussion of the shoin and sukiya styles by Kazuo Nishi, then moved
into greater and greater detail: Shigeo Kawamoto on samurai residential planning, Kaori
Chino on moving wall panels and interior space, Naoki Tani on carpenters’ expertise, and
three essays more closely concerned with Nikkō’s carved ornament.
MIYAMOTO, Kenji / 宮元健次(著). Katsura Rikyū Kakusareta Mittsu no Nazoi / 桂離宮 : 隱

された三つの謎 [Katsura Imperial Retreat: Three Hidden Riddles]. Tokyo: Shōkoku-Sha /
彰国社, 1992.
In Japanese only, with pen-and-wash illustrations by the author. An idiosyncratic approach

including analysis of proportional order, site axes and grids, and an argument for Christian
influences on some elements found in the garden, all based on formal theories popular in
the 1980s. This book was developed while the author completed his doctoral dissertation
on the same topic at Tokyo Fine Arts University (東京芸術大学). In spite of these points,
the author made an effort to write in an accessible fashion. He later produced a second book
that further developed the thesis and added comparison to the Tōshōgū at Nikkō:
MIYAMOTO, Kenji / 宮元健次(著). Katsura Rikyū to Nikkō Tōshōgū / 桂離と日光東

照宮 [Katsura Imperial Retreat and Nikko’s Tōshōgū]. Tokyo: Gakugei Shuppansha /
学芸出版社, 1997.
(continued)

Buntrock 23
Figures 13a and 13b. In the illustration on the left, Miyamoto draws together various ornamental
references to the moon found in Katsura’s buildings and gardens (1992: 52). The illustration on the right
supports Miyamoto’s argument that Renaissance notions of proportion and perspective also influenced
Katsura’s organization (1992: 104).
NISHI, Kazuo / 西和夫(著). Katsura Rikyū monogatari : Hito to Kenchiku no Fūkei 桂離

宮物語: 人と建築の風景 [The Tale of Katsura Imperial Retreat: Scenes of its People and
Architecture]. Chikuma Riburari no. 82 [Chikuma Library no. 82] Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō /
筑摩書房, 1992.
In Japanese only. An inexpensive pocket book that might even be used during walks; it
placed Katsura in the context of its surroundings, both urban and topological.

Buntrock 24
YAMATO, Satoshi / 大和智(著). ITŌ, Teiji / 伊東ていじ(著), Yasushi INOUE / 井上靖(著)

and Kakichi SUZUKI / 鈴木嘉吉, eds. Katsura Rikyū. Nihon Meikenchiku Shashin Senshū
桂離宮。日本名建築写真撰集 [Katsura Imperial Retreat: Collections of Japan’s Famous
Architecture], vol. 19 of a 20 volume set. Tokyo: Shinchosha / 新潮社, 1993. Photography by
Binshin JUMONJI / 十文字美信.
In Japanese only. Itō, internationally recognized as a leading postwar Japanese architectural

critic, was involved in several publications intended for professional readers, in addition to
his essay included in this volume.
SAITŌ, Hidetoshi / 斎藤英俊. Katsura Rikyū : Nihon Kenchiku no Utsukushisa no Himitsu

/ 桂離宮 : 日本建築の美しさの秘密 [Katsura Imperial Retreat: The Secret of Japanese
Architectural Beauty]. Tokyo : Sōshi-Sha / 草思社, 1993. Illustrations by Kazuo HOZUMI /
穂積和夫.
In Japanese only. Somewhat speculative: line drawings pictured artisans as they might have
looked when working on site at the time Katsura was first built.
MIYAMOTO, Kenji / 宮元健次(著). Katsura Rikyū : Burūno Tauto wa shōgensuru / 桂離宮 :

ブルーノタウトは証言する [Katsura Imperial Retreat: The Testimony of Bruno Taut]. Tokyo:
Kashima Shuppankai / 鹿島出版会, 1995.
In Japanese only, with bibliographical references. Text was an homage to Bruno Taut; it
also paired some of Taut’s sketches with photographs to demonstrate axial ties and patterns.
Figure 14. Miyamoto concentrates

on Bruno Taut’s experience
of Katsura, drawing on Taut’s
sketches and notes (1995: 96-97).
Buntrock 25
SUZUKI, Kakichi / 鈴木嘉吉 and Masao NAKAMURA / 中村昌生, eds. Katsura Rikyū / 桂
離宮. Tokyo: Shōgakukan / 小学館, 1995. With essays by Osamu SATŌ / 佐藤理(著) and
Yasunobu TATEBE / 建部恭宣(著), photography by Minao TABATA / 田畑みなお.
In Japanese. About a third of the volume was taken up with new photography of Katsura’s
renovations, dealing more frankly (and positively) than most with the fresh state of newly
laid finishes. Conditions during construction were portrayed in equally rich color photog-
raphy with brief descriptive captions in Japanese; a related text covered some of the same
points as the Imperial Household Agency’s publications on the renovations. (However, there
were no photographs of workers or tools, as in the Imperial Household Agency’s publica-
tions.) Also included sixty-four pages of measured drawings (mostly plans, sections, and
elevations, but some details), the most complete set I am aware of since Kawakami. One of
the finest recent volumes on Katsura: slipcovered, beautifully printed, in an oversize format
(39 cm. tall) with many double-page photo spreads and delicate washi interleaves, the book
underscored the intrinsic value of Katsura in its production.
Figure 15 (left). Unlike most publications from the same time, this volume presents the painstaking craft
required for restoration. (Suzuki 1995: 186).
Figure 16 (right). Photography following Katsura’s restoration generally downplayed the fresh appearance
of new materials; not so here. (Suzuki 1995: 256).

Buntrock 26
SATŌ, Osamu / 佐藤理(著). Katsura Rikyū no Kenchiku: Shōwa, Heisei no Daishūfuku

Zenkiroku / 桂離宮の建築。昭和。平成の大修復全記錄 [The Architecture of Katsura
Imperial Retreat: A Record of the Major Restoration in Shōwa, Heisei]. Tokyo: Mokuji-Sha
/ 木耳社, 1999.
In Japanese only. Included construction photographs at various stages of work, with some
measured drawings. The extensive text drew on the earlier materials produced by the Im-
perial Household Agency, but photographs seem to have been taken by the author during
restoration. Written with a focus on process, the book even included a chapter on the tem-
porary construction needed to protect buildings while work was under way, as well as a
chapter on wood preservation, including the use of wood fillers and other modern materials
to combat the effect of insects and rot.
KASAI, Kazuko / 笠井一子(著). Kyō no shokuninshū ga kataru Katsura Rikyū / 京の職人衆

が語る桂離宮 [“Kyo” Artisans Speaking of Katsura Imperial Retreat]. Tokyo: Sōshi-Sha /
草思社, 2001.
In Japanese only. Inspired by an earlier book on craftsmen in Kyoto, Kazuko Kasai focused
here on artisans who had worked on the restoration of Katsura, including representatives
from the contractor and the head carpenter (棟梁), as well as specialists who worked with
traditional roofing materials (葺師), plaster, tatami, ornamental metalwork (錺師), and
printed papers (唐紙師) and their mounting (表具師). The book was intended for a general
readership and was very accessible. For example, one section was titled, “Why is it that
every time I visit Katsura, Goten’s paper screens (shōji) are shut?” Included limited photo-
graphs of the elderly craftsmen and their tools.
The End of Tradition—or a New Beginning? (2000–)

Ever since the 1960s, coffee-table books on Katsura featuring attractive photography and limited,
pro forma text in English and Japanese have remained a staple, though publishing after the turn of
the millennium did slow to a trickle relative to other decades. Two books listed below were brought
out by newspapers, suggesting that the symbolic value of Katsura’s story remains strong in some
circles. The final book on the list was explicitly offered as a photography collection celebrating
Yasuhiro Ishimoto’s long, successful career as it draws to a close—although its format equivocated
by including two brief essays (one in English and Japanese and the other only in Japanese) on the
architecture and history of Katsura. Notably, the story told in each of these three books did not
stray significantly from essays on the imperial retreat penned decades earlier.
A few books instead followed the trajectory suggested by Isozaki’s initial effort on Kat-
sura, offering not a discussion of the site—its architecture, gardens, or construction—but a deeper
reflection on the discourse of Katsura, with particular interest in the impact of Bruno Taut and of

Buntrock 27
Kenzo Tange, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, and Walter Gropius. It is fair to say that there is not much further
this approach might go: the book edited by Virginia Ponciroli, involving both Isozaki and Ishimoto,
gathered up the story of Katsura in the world using facsimiles of many earlier editions and even
added a tidbit or two, such as a postcard from the French architect Le Corbusier to Walter Gropius.
Nakamori effectively shed light on the story of Tange’s ambitions with charming personal detail.
This descriptive bibliography, and a related review I recently authored on Ishimoto’s many contri-
butions to publishing on Katsura, are also postmodern examples of publishing on publishing.�
But bibliographies also underscore opportunities. A book dealer would once have devel-
oped a bibliography to enhance the value of rare and little-known volumes (and therefore, before
publishing on the Kawakami folios, I made an effort to identify any found in the open stacks of
university libraries and notify the staff of their rarity and potential value). Katsura offers an ideal
example not only of the architecture and construction craft possible in seventeenth-century Japan
but also of the political uses of architectural tradition in the twentieth century. The Kawakami
folios are little known at home or abroad, and it is even unclear who Kawakami was; the extensive
effort at renovation has also not been addressed in English. With modern library practices, it is
easier to identify the locations of publications that document this work, and it is my hope that this
bibliography will encourage others to take a deeper look. As Japan again turns inward, goaded
by its waning economic status in the world at large, its traditions will again increase in interest.
Perhaps there are new chapters to be written on Katsura.
Kyōto Shinbun Shuppan Sentā / 編者京都新聞出版センター, ed. Katsura Rikyū Shūgakuin

Rikyū: Kyōto Shinbun Sōkan 125-nen Kinen Shuppan / 桂離、宮修学院離宮。京都新聞創刊
125年記年出版 [Katsura Imperial Retreat, Shūgakuin Imperial Retreat: Commemorating
the 125th Anniversary of the Founding of the Kyoto Shinbun News]. Kyoto: Kyōto Shinbun
Shuppan Sentā / 編者京都新聞出版センター, 2004. Text by Seiji SAITŌ / 斎藤誠治(著);
photography by Akira NAKATA / 中田昭.
In Japanese only. Primarily photographic, but included a brief text on Taut and Gropius.
Ponciroli, Virginia, ed. Katsura Imperial Villa. Milan: Electa Architecture, 2004. With
essays by Arata ISOZAKI, Manfred Speidel, Bruno Taut, Walter Gropius, Kenzo TANGE,
and Francesco Dal Co. Photography by Yoshiharu MATSUMURA.
The most comprehensive of recent English-language books on Katsura, which included

republication of landmark texts: the first two sections of Isozaki’s 1983 work, excerpts from
Taut’s diaries and his Nippon: Japan Seen Through European Eyes (1934). Several essays
incorporated full-page facsimiles of earlier, influential books. Dal Co offered intriguing
new detail regarding reactions to Katsura by Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. Incorpo-

Buntrock 28
rates measured drawings, apparently “as-builts” following restoration; Matsumura’s pho-

tography is splendid.
MIYOSHI, Kazuyoshi / 三好和義. Kyōto no gosho to rikyū: shashin / 京都の御所と離宮

[Kyoto’s Imperial Palaces and Retreats]. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Shuppan/ 朝日新聞出版,
2009.
Miyoshi’s extensive photographic survey of the four residences in Kyoto under the supervi-
sion of the Imperial Household Agency returned to the approach seen in Kawakami’s folios
seven decades earlier. Nearly two hundred fine photographs of Katsura, which express sea-
sonal change in a way most such collections do not. There is some abbreviated information
in short essays, chronologies, and captions; one essay is by Kazuo Nishi.
NAKAMORI, Yasufumi. Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture.

Photographs by ISHIMOTO Yasuhiro. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston;
Distributed by Yale University Press, 2010.
A fine book, tied to an exhibition of Ishimoto’s photography at the Museum of Fine Arts in
Houston, that took pains to acknowledge the success of the 1960 Tange-Ishimoto collabora-
tion even in its layout and topography. The Japanese-born author Yasufumi Nakamori, a
photography curator with the museum, began this work as a chapter of his doctoral disserta-
tion; the text placed Ishimoto’s artwork within the larger body of photographic production
on Katsura that proceeded it and the complete body of Ishimoto’s output, including the
1983 color photography published with Isozaki. Nakamori offered archival materials from
the 1960 book’s development, including letters and personal snapshots held by Tange’s de-
scendants and a chronology that began with Ishimoto’s birth; overall, the book embodies
a sweet sense of nostalgia for the postwar era when the original work was undertaken.
The conclusion, arguing that Ishimoto’s work was altered by Tange to achieve the strong
character that made the original a success, is not wholly convincing, but it does not in any
way detract from the diligent scholarship.
(continued)

Buntrock 29
Figure 17 (left). Nakamori was able to access the original contact prints used by Tange and Ishimoto
in the development of their iconic book from 1960, using this material to illustrate the astute cropping
involved (2010: 30).
Figure 18 (right). Nakamori’s careful survey includes comparisons of Ishimoto’s photographs taken in
1953 and in 1981-2. In some cases, the color photography was carefully matched to earlier black and
white work, as is seen here (2010: 52).
ISHIMOTO, Yasuhiro / 石元泰博(著). Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura Imperial Retreat].

Tokyo: Rikuyo-Sha / 六耀社, 2010.
A limited edition of only one thousand copies, published for the photography market and
strongly abstract. Beautifully printed in black and white, with several never-before-pub-
lished images. The abbreviated text covers established territories: a Japanese-only essay
by retired University of Tokyo professor Tadashi Yoyoyama started with the story of the
Hachijō family and went on to describe the physical organization of Katsura’s buildings
and gardens. Architect Hiroshi Naitō offered a more poetic endorsement of Ishimoto’s im-
portance, calling him “an aged monk with the pure heart of a youth” in the English version
of his essay. Ishimoto, in another text offered in both English and Japanese, recalled his
encounters with Katsura over the decades.

Buntrock 30
Figure 19. Ishimoto cover. This collection

emphasizes the strong abstraction in Ishimoto’s
large-format photography from 1953.
Dana Buntrock is professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. She would
like to acknowledge and thank Jesson Go, for graciously assisting her in sorting out many of these
texts and scanning files, and Keila Diehl, for her encouragement throughout this project and open-
mindedness about its approach. Without their support this little project would never have arrived
at a point where it might inspire others.
References
Buntrock, Dana. 2011. “Review Essay: Yasuhiro Ishimoto’s Photographs of Katsura Imperial
Retreat.” Visual Resources 27 (2): 185–190.
Itoh, Teiji. 1956. “The Katsura Villa: A Flower Out of Season.” Sinkenchiku 31 (11): 61–69.
[Published simultaneously in the Japanese edition of the magazine as “Kuruizaki no
Katsura Rikyū.”]
Ōkawa, Naomi. 1975. Edo Architecture: Katsura and Nikko. Translated by Alan Woodhull and
Akito Miyamoto. Heibonsha Survey of Japanese Art, vol. 20. New York: Weatherhill.

Buntrock 31
Tange, Kenzo. 1960. Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture / Katsura: Nihon
Kenchiku ni Okeru Dentō to Sōzō / 桂 — 日本建築における伝統と創造. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press and Tokyo: Zokeisha / 造型社出版.
Taut, Bruno. 1937. Houses and People of Japan. Tokyo: Sanseido Co., Ltd.
———. 1942. Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura Imperial Retreat]. Translated by Hideo
SHINODA / 篠田英雄. Taut Zenshū 1 / タウト全集１. Tokyo: Ikuseishakōdōkaku / 育聖
社弘道閣.
Notes
1. Approaches to rendering Japanese names have changed over time. Names such as Shūgakuin
or Kenzō were often published without macrons in the postwar period; Itō was written as Itoh.
While macrons are used in the text, original macron-free forms are employed when they reflect
source information.
2. Notably, Higashikuze was asked to remove himself from the House of Peers quite early in the
U.S. occupation.
3. Taut (1942: 213).
4. Itoh (1956). Included three small photographs by the author and four larger, more carefully
composed photographs by Yasuhiro Ishimoto debuting the American-born photographer’s
Katsura work.
5. Ōkawa (1975: 146).
6. Tange (1960: v).
7. Buntrock (2011).


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Katsura Imperial Villa: A Brief Descriptive Bibliography, with Illustrations

Dana Buntrock, University of California, Berkeley

Early Shōwa (1928–1945)

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

Figures 3a and 3b. The final chapter of Taut’s Houses

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

Figure 4. View of the Goten at

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

A Japanese translation of the original German-language, accordion-style sketchbook with

Occupied Japan and the Immediate Postwar Era (1945–1959)

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

FUJISHIMA Gaijirō / 藤島亥治郎. Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura Imperial Retreat].

TAKAKUWA, Gisei / 高桑義生. Katsura Sansō / 桂山荘 [Katsura, Mountain Retreat].

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

Figure 5 (above). Horiguchi cover. The earliest example

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

NIWA, Teizo / 丹羽鼎三(著) / Written in English as Tayzaw NIWA. Katsura Rikyū no

NIWA, Teizo / 丹羽鼎三(著) / Written in English as Tayzaw NIWA. Katsura Rikyū no

WATSUJI, Tetsurō / 和辻哲郎(著). Katsura Rikyū: Seisaku Katei no Kōsatsu/桂離宮 : 制作過

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

SHIMADA, Kan’ichirō / 島田貫一郎, photographer. Katsura Rikyū: Shimada Kan’ichirō

Japan in the World (1960–1980)

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

TANGE, Kenzo. Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture / Katsura:

In the two-and-a-half pages of text Tange actually dedicated to Katsura, he referenced

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

Figure 7. Detail of the New Palace.

Released in English as:

TANGE, Kenzo. Translated by Charles S. Terry. Katsura: Tradition and Creation in

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

YANAGI, Ryō / 柳亮. Katsura / 桂. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha / 美術出版社, 1961.

YUKAWA, Osamu / 湯川制. Katsura no Rikyū: Dentō to Sōzō to no Zōkeiteki na Tsuitaiken

The first guidebook on Katsura in a “modern, European” language; a pocket-size volume

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

Figure 8. Ōkawa cover. These two remarkable

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

FUJIOKA Michio. “The Katsura Detached Palace,” Japan Architect. Published in

KAWAKAMI, Mitsugu / 川上貢(著) and Masao NAKAMURA / 中村昌生(著). Katsura

KAWAKAMI, Mitsugu / 川上貢. Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura Imperial Retreat].

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

Later published in Japanese as:

ISHIKAWA, Tadashi / 石川忠(著). Kyōto no Rikyū: Katsura, Shūgakuin / 京都の離

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

Compiled and translated from a three-volume set published only in Japanese:

In Japanese only. Large format, with color printing, but formulaic.

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

HAYASHIYA, Tatsusaburō / 林屋辰三郎(著). Katsura Rikyū / 桂離宮 [Katsura Imperial

A slim, unassuming hardcover mixing black-and-white photography from Ishimoto’s initial

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

SHOZO, Baba, ed. Translation by Richard L. Gage. Katsura: A Quintessential Repre-

Figure 10. Documentation of Katsura’s

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

Then republished in a hardcover Japanese volume as:

Followed the conventions of coffee-table books.

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

Figure 11 (left). This volume emphasized the rich materiality

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review