photobook
- Museum number
- 2007,3007.208
- Title
- Object: Teikoku Hoteru 帝国ホテル (Imperial Hotel 1921-67)
- Description
-
Photobook. First edition.
- Production date
- 1968
- Dimensions
-
Height: 23.80 centimetres (covers)
-
Width: 26 centimetres (covers)
- Curator's comments
- This is the best photographic record of Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel. Built in 1921 it was a unique fusion of Western, South American, and Japanese features and famously survived the great Kanto Earthquake of the following year. None of the guests were injured. The present book is a requiem for a building that had been pulled down in 1967 to make room for a larger hotel building. Oscillating between close-ups and double-page panoramas (some of the spreads are to be viewed vertically), colour and monochrome, Watanabe captures the eccentric spirit of the building with loving attention to the strange architectural details many of which contradict the functional demands of a hotel and seem to be strangely reminiscent of Mayan temple architecture. A beautifully designed book. Very rare. Only two copies in OCLC. (Titus Boeder, 4/07)
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2009 Oct 25-2010 Feb 14, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from prehistory to the present'
2012 Oct - 2013 Apr, BM, Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from Prehistory to the Present'
2021 April - October, BM Mitsubishi Corporation Japanese Galleries
- Acquisition date
- 2007
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 2007,3007.208
- Additional IDs
-
Other BM number: PB.205 (Photobook number)