Ishimoto Yasuhiro, who first visited Katsura Imperial Villa in 1953 with a curator from the Museum of Modern Art in New York in preparation for an exhibition on Japanese architecture, was apparently reminded of the buildings of Mies van der Rohe, the architect who taught at the Bauhaus and New Bauhaus. To Ishimoto, Mies’ buildings were not merely photographic subjects he tackled in Chicago – they were modern creative principles that provided him with an education in photography when he was a student. Ishimoto detected the same modern forms in Katsura, a 17th century work of Japanese architecture. He made a concentrated effort to shoot the villa on two occasions, first in 1954 and again in 1981 and 1982. Ishimoto published three photo books based on the results in 1960, 1971, and 1983, respectively. All of these were collaborative works with leading architects and designers such as Walter Gropius (1883–1969), Herbert Bayer (1900–85), Tange Kenzo (1913–2005), Kamekura Yusaku (1915–97), Isozaki Arata (b.1931), and Tanaka Ikko (1930–2002).