Middle Shoin Seen From the First Room of the Old Shoin

Using a wooden beam as a central axis, Yasuhiro Ishimoto captured two of the three main quarters in Katsura Villa, a centuries-old home built for the emperor of Japan. Made with a large-format camera, this image shows the villa’s tatami floors, papered walls, and wooden ceilings unfolding neatly from foreground to background. Ishimoto, who studied at Chicago’s Institute of Design, foregrounded the clean lines and interlocking planes of the villa, inviting comparison to the steel beams and plate glass in the Chicago buildings of the Bauhaus architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.