Katsura Imperial Villa

Katsura Imperial Villa is a seventeenth-century princely retreat on the western edge of Kyoto, beside the Katsura River, and it is widely regarded as one of the supreme achievements of Japanese architecture and garden design. It was begun in the early 1600s by Prince Toshihito, the first head of the Hachijō-no-miya princely house, a cultivated man steeped in classical literature, and greatly extended after 1641 by his son Prince Toshitada. The site itself carried literary associations: Katsura appears in The Tale of Genji as a country retreat where the moon is reflected clearly on the water, and Toshihito shaped his villa with that image in mind.

The buildings are in the sukiya manner, an informal, refined style that grew out of the architecture of the tea ceremony. The Old Shoin of around 1616, the Middle Shoin and the New Palace, added around 1663 for a visit by the retired Emperor Go-Mizunoo, are linked in a staggered diagonal line, a so-called flying-geese arrangement that lets each room open onto its own view of the garden. Everything is built to the module of the tatami mat, with plain unpainted timber, paper screens and slender posts, and the decoration is reserved for small details such as the shelves, the metal door-pulls and the patterned papers. From the Old Shoin a platform floored with thin bamboo, without railing or roof, projects toward the pond for watching the moon rise.

Around a large pond with islands and inlets, a stroll garden unfolds as a sequence of carefully staged scenes. Paths of carefully set stepping stones, bridges of earth and of stone, a miniature pebble beach and stone lanterns lead from one teahouse to the next: Shōkin-tei, whose alcove and sliding doors are covered in a checkerboard of blue and white paper, Shōka-tei on its hilltop, Shōiken, and the Gepparō moon-viewing pavilion. The views are deliberately concealed and revealed as one walks. In the 1930s the German architect Bruno Taut praised Katsura as an expression of the modern ideals of simplicity and honesty of structure, and Walter Gropius later came to the same conclusion, which made the villa a reference point for twentieth-century architects around the world.

Getting there

The villa lies in Kyoto's Nishikyō ward, about 2 kilometres from the neighbouring city of Mukō. From central Kyoto, the Hankyu line runs to Katsura Station, from which the villa is a walk of roughly 15 to 20 minutes. Osaka Itami Airport (ITM) is about 33 kilometres away, and Kansai International Airport serves international flights to the region. The grounds are managed by the Imperial Household Agency and can only be seen on guided tours.