Yasuhiro Ishimoto – Katsura, 17th century imperial villa with “Mondrianesque” motifs – By Yasufumi Nakamori
“I found the basic elements of Chicago architecture in Katsura. It was by contemplating the pure geometry of Mies van der Rohe’s buildings in Chicago that my vocation was revealed. What an emotion to find in the classical architecture of my country of origin, not only reminders of modernist architecture, but its very source…” – Yasuhiro Ishimoto
The Katsura Imperial Villa was one of the first places Ishimoto visited upon his return to Japan in the spring of 1953, after fourteen years in the United States. The young photographer was then asked by Edward Steichen, director of the Photography department at MoMA in New York and curator of the exhibition The Family of Man, to accompany his colleague, Arthur Drexler, director of the Architecture department, to Kyoto and Nara as part of his exhibition dedicated to premodern Japanese architecture. Among the different sites visited by Drexler and Ishimoto during this trip, it is that of Katsura that most impacted the photographer. Ishimoto was seduced by its gardens and its numerous stepping stones. With his large-format 4×5 Linhof camera, he focused on details of the tea ceremony pavilion and study rooms dating from the 17th century, as well as the gardens and lawn-covered paths lined with stone paths connecting the buildings. He described as “Mondrianesque” a geometric pattern observed on the beams and columns of Japanese architecture, composed of wood and cob, creating a resonance between their characteristics and those of modernist architecture composed of glass, concrete and steel, typical of Mies van der Rohe, such as the buildings of Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, photographed by Ishimoto upon their completion in 1951. (…) The astonishing and unusual images that he produced bear witness to the originality of his photographic approach, nourished by curiosity, an assimilation of formalism, a sense of experimentation and impartial precision, stemming from his training at ID. (…)
Ishimoto took more than six hundred photos of Katsura during his two visits, approximately one hundred and thirty-five of which were published in 1960 in his book Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture. His images are accompanied by an essay by architect Kenzō Tange and an introduction by Walter Gropius. While the layout of the photos is done by Tange with assistance from Japanese graphic designer Yusaku Kamekura, the cover and other aspects of the graphic design are by renowned Bauhaus designer Herbert Bayer, who collaborated with Tange. The book was published in Japan and the United States. Ishimoto’s photos provided Japanese architects and artists with a new look at Japanese tradition, as they explored modernity or expressions of this modernity, in the context of post-war democracy.
By Yasufumi Nakamori, art historian, curator and director of the Asia Society Museum in New York. Excerpts from Nouveaux regards sur Katsura from the book Yasuhiro Ishimoto. Des lignes et des corps.
