Katsura Rikyu - Page 3
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The villa is often called a palace, but the main house is characterized by refined elegance rather than splendor. The house was designed to maximize its exposure to winter sunlight, while offering as much protection from summer heat as possible. This was accomplished by positioning the house at exactly nineteen degrees off of the traditional north-south axis.
Such attention to detail is also typical of the six tea houses which are carefully located along a path of 1, 760 stepping-stones. Each of the stepping-stones is like an individual note in a musical composition. Visitors always followed this path in a clockwise direction as they experienced a series of carefully composed views.
You are now ready to take an online tour of the Katsura Imperial Villa.
Both of the images on this page are from Katsura Rikyu's Concept and Technique of Expression This is a rather odd but interesting website, I strongly recommend it.
If you would like to learn more about Japanese gardens, the best website that I know of is JGarden - The Japanese Garden Database
