Despite Daruma doll's cute face, the stone steps were steep and long

When I heard the name Bruno Taut, my knowledge of him was limited to the meager knowledge that he was the person who promoted the splendor of Katsura-rikyū to the rest of the world. Like Ernest Fenollosa, I thought he was just another hired foreigner who came to Japan during the Meiji period. To my surprise, however, I found a preserved building called Senshin-tei, where Bruno Taut lived, in the precincts of Daruma-ji Temple. Bruno Taut lived in this corner of Daruma-ji Temple in Takasaki for two years and three months from August 1, 1934. It is easy to imagine that Taut was familiar with Japanese culture, since he even praised Katsura Rikyu. That said, I was surprised to learn that he spent his time in a simple building of a Buddhist temple far from Tokyo and Kyoto.

Unlike Fenollosa, Bruno Taut was not a hired foreigner and did not come to Japan at the request of the Japanese government, but at the invitation of the Japan International Architecture Association. Despite this, he did not have much luck with architectural work during his stay in Japan, so much so that Taut himself described his life in Japan in his diary as "an architect's holiday." This is in contrast to Frank Lloyd Wright, who visited Japan frequently and worked energetically on projects such as the Imperial Hotel and the Jiyu Gakuen School Myonichikan. But this is probably due to the times. Bruno Taut came to Japan on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War. The Taisho Romanticism had passed, and Japanese society was losing its appetite for modern architecture.

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