Title: Katsura Rikyu
Author: Kimon Berlin
Date: November 25th, 2008
Description: This image depicts the Katsura Villa from the outside. The lush landscape melts into the building which has been done in a very rustic way by including natural and manmade materials together. The bridge is natural, made from stone, emphasizing the importance of using materials found in nature to the design and the values of wabi-sabi, the idea that beauty should be what’s found in nature: imperfect, subdued, and asymmetrical. The angle of this picture captures the purpose of the villa- to have nature be the centerpiece and have the building be off to the side. The white screens of the building align with Shinto architecture, which is associated with the color white in architecture and is also regarded as a nature religion.
References:
Photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Katsura_Rikyu_(3264662094).jpg
Attribution: KimonBerlin, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons
