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A Place That Endures

I opened this edition of the Continuum with a definition of legacy that places the emphasis on building up people, (as opposed to money, or business outcomes.)  As we consider legacy in other ways, it has become clear that legacy extends to places.  Places last far longer than those who build them. Whether or not the place lives on well, is entirely dependent on the ‘why’ of design principles. 

One place that stands out as having addressed the ‘why’ is Katsura Imperial Villa near Kyoto.  So many tourists from Canada are finding themselves in Kyoto, and I personally think that a visit to Katsura should be on everyone’s bucket list.  My family and I visited Katsura in November of 2018.  I can still remember the deeply emotional and soulful experience it was.  What were the design principles that made Katsura a studied and admired place among architectural students around the world? 

Katsura was built by the imperial family of Japan more than 400 years ago.  It was not a castle, nor a monument.  It was not built to display scale nor power.  Katsura has no interest in being bigger, louder, more symmetrical or decorative.  It was not a display of wealth like the castles and garrisons of the time were.  It wasn’t even about the buildings. So, what was the ‘why”? 

Katsura was intended to create a disciplined retreat where the garden, and movement operate as a single, continuous experience. It slows the visitor, quickens attention, and frames nature rather than competing with it. Designed for poetry, tea, and moon-gazing rather than pomp or power, Katsura uses simple and restrained materials, beautiful proportions, and carefully sequenced pathing.  They reveal views gradually, preferring time, perception, and human scale over purposeful legacy building. Its aim was not to impress, but to cultivate clarity of mind through deliberate restraint, allowing meaning to emerge through use, repetition, and quiet observation rather than display.  I wish I could describe what is there more convincingly.  Please, just go there; you may return a different person.