Trained
at the Institute of Design in Chicago, an outgrowth of the Bauhaus, Yasuhiro
Ishimoto brought a modernist eye to his photographs of the Katsura Imperial
Villa, a 17th-century teahouse and garden just outside Kyoto. His photographic
aesthetic was perfectly attuned to the geometries of post and lintel
construction, tatami mats, paper screens, and sliding walls, elements of
traditional Japanese architecture that profoundly influenced modern art and
architecture in the West.