This is the last major book from Yukio Futagawa, before his death. He started GA Publications, in the 1970s, after the success of several titles for other publishers, notably Modern Japanese Houses. He brilliantly documented the 12 volume Complete Works of Frank Lloyd Wright, produced the three Wright Portfolios. But this, Celestial Gardens, was the last major project.  As Kengo Kuma writes, “these are not photographs of architecture, they are photographs of gardens.” For several Katsura books, there have been distinct efforts to link Katsura to the instincts of modernism, of Mies and bare lines and meticulous composition.  “We are living in the era of the garden, not of the architecture.” That is the force of this wonderful book, that is the presentation of Futagawa and Kuma, to show the palace and villas in a much broader context, in a subtlety more complex than a specific line or texture. Katsura, and the Villas, as a garden of architecture.  There is first the text of Kuma, and then the full page, and color, photos, of Futagawa, 260 of them, of the two Imperial Villa and the two Imperial Palace. It is his Figaro, his masterpiece. Katsura.