In 1961 a cohort of students and staff from the University of Melbourne’s Architecture Faculty visited Japan on a study trip initiated by Brian Lewis, the Faculty’s Dean. Lewis, an enthusiastic proponent of the Colombo Plan, facilitated the influx of students from Asian countries to the Faculty of Architecture in the post-war years. This trip to Japan in January-February 1961 was an extension of this outward-looking attitude - it is the first known instance of an organised architectural tour of Japan by an Australian university, and was intended as the first in a series of such visits to countries throughout Asia. The group of around 70 included Lewis, his daughter Claire (a recent architecture graduate), Bruce Anderson, Grant Featherston, Balwant Saini, Fritz Janeba and Tah Wen Chu, amongst others. The visit encompassed both traditional and contemporary buildings, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel and Kunio Maekawa’s recently-completed Tokyo Metropolitan Festival Hall. Accompanying the group for part of the trip was Japanese architect Shigeru Yura, who later that year would relocate to Australia, subsequently joining the Faculty of Architecture and designing its Japanese Room.