Born in Kyoto, Shirai Seiichi (1905-1983) was an architect whose eccentric yet refined style and use of materials conspicuously diverged from the common architecture of the time in Japan. Upon graduating from the design department of the forerunner to today's Kyoto Institute of Technology, he studied philosophy in Germany before returning to Japan and becoming a self-taught architect. His use of European classicist features and facades, as well as materials like marble and brick, gained him numerous commissions which he executed in a variety of architectural styles. This densely illustrated book appears with the eponymous exhibition at the Shoto Museum of Art.