Atami (a pleasant seaside resort west of Tokyo in Shizuoka Prefecture) is famous as nice Onsen area, also it attracts attention as great architectures for architecture lovers.
I visited MOA art museum and Bruno Taut “Atami Villa” (official name is Kyu Hyuga Bettei).

First talking about Bruno Taut, he was a German architect and his style is categorized Expressionism. He was active as an avant-garde architect in Berlin. He was also active as a city planner by designing housing complexes. You can live his house still now but it is difficult to live there because it is very popular.

He went to the Soviet Union but he returned to Berlin after a few years, then he headed to Switzerland in order to escape persecution with the emergence of Nazi. He arrived in Japan after Turkey and European countries, invited by Japan International Architecture. He was raised in Europe where Japonism was a heyday. Perhaps his dream came true to come to his dream country Japan.

In 1930, he arrive in Tsuruga, Fukui prefecture and he had a fateful encounter in Kyoto. He met “Katsura Imperial Villa”. He expressed the villa “It makes me almost cry, it is so beautiful…” All his ideal design was there. He was the first person who introduced Katsura Imperial Villa to the world, he wrote about it some books. I have a lot about the villa but not this time.