#156, Katsura Villa

This photograph captures the rough textures and irregular geometry of a stepping stone path outside Katsura Villa, a 17th-century residence for the Japanese imperial family. In 1953, Ishimoto traveled around Japan with the German American architect and former Bauhaus director Walter Gropius. Ishimoto created images that highlighted the villa’s bold graphic forms, which Gropius and his Bauhaus colleagues had long celebrated as a precursor to their own aesthetic. Ishimoto’s photobook Katsura, published in 1960 with an accompanying essay by Gropius, popularized the villa for Japanese and international audiences alike.