After studying architecture at Waseda University, Yoshiya Tanoue answered a newspaper ad seeking a technical translator for the new Imperial Hotel project, and began working with Frank Lloyd Wright in 1919. When Wright returned to America in 1922, Tanoue continued to assist Arata Endo, and was with him on Sept. 1, 1923 when the Great Kanto Earthquake struck. The two men dashed to the hotel to see if it was safe, and Tanoue wrote that he saw “the peacocks flying on the walls” of the Imperial Hotel's great Peacock Room banquet hall.