‘Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture,’ Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Exhibit
If U.S. architects know about the photographer Ishimoto Yasuhiro, it’s likely because his images of Kyoto, Japan’s 17th century Katsura Imperial Villa appeared in the influential 1960 book Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture, which featured essays by Kenzo Tange and Walter Gropius. What is less well-known is that Tange cropped and sequenced Ishimoto’s work in an effort to influence the debate over what direction Japan’s postwar reconstruction should take. Fifty years later, thanks to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston exhibition Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture, Photographs by Ishimoto Yasuhiro, many of these same images, including the untitled one at left, can be experienced as originally intended: full-size and agenda-free. Through Sept. 12. mfah.org