Born in Kladno, Central Bohemia in 1888, Antonin Raymond emigrated to New York City in 1910 after completing his studies in Trieste. In New York he met his work partner and future wife Noémi Pernessin, then in 1916 moved to Spring Green, Wisconsin to work under Frank Lloyd Wright. After military service in the American Expeditionary Force during World War I, he rejoined Wright as the project architect for the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo until 1921. On completion of the Imperial Hotel, Noémi and Antonin set up their own practice in Japan, creating work that kept pace with emerging modernist trends in Europe and the US. Returning to America in 1938, the Raymonds’ work exhibited elements of Japanese influence, including the use of fusuma partitions and shōji screens in their own home. In 1947 Raymond petitioned General MacArthur for permission to enter occupied Japan and participate in post-war reconstruction works. Raymond would be one of the only foreign architects working in Japan in this period, and he would eventually gain a series of commissions in Tokyo and elsewhere in the country. The Reader’s Digest Offices in Tokyo (1951) was Raymond’s first post-war project in Japan, and received the 1952 Architectural Institute of Japan Award. Other notable projects include St Anselm’s Church, Tokyo (1954) and the Nanzan University in Nagona (1966), both of which demonstrate Raymond’s mastery of in-situ concrete, including the use of piloti and complex thin-shell forms.

Robin Boyd noted Raymond’s important role in Japanese architecture in New Directions, but didn’t profile the architect, focusing instead on Japanese-born practitioners. Boyd photographed Raymond’s Reader’s Digest Office in 1961, on his first visit to Japan.