Katsura Imperial Villa
A Japanese retreat whose rooms are built of tatami mats, sliding doors and views.
Katsura was built in stages from 1615 and was admired in the 1930s by Bruno Taut and other modernists. They saw in it a model for modular systems and open plans. The villa is managed by the Imperial Household Agency in Kyoto.
Materials: Wood, paper, tatami of straw and rush
Manufacture: Rooms are measured in tatami; sliding paper screens, shoji and fusuma, can be removed.
The grid of tatami and timber frames governing the whole room.
How the walls open to the garden – room and landscape become one.