From tatami mat flooring to sliding paper screens, the 84 guestrooms at the latest offering from Hoshino Resorts are typical of the operator’s luxury inns in rural Japanese locations including Mount Fuji and Okinawa. Yet the rooms in this ryokan are arrayed throughout a 19-story tower in the Otemachi business district not far from Ginza, one of Tokyo’s busiest commercial areas.
“Since there are almost no ryokan in the big city, we thought we should make one of our own,” says Rei Azuma, principal of Azuma Architect & Associates, which crafted both the façade and its interior (in collaboration with Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei and NTT Facilities) and has designed all six Hoshinoya properties. To translate the classic inn concept to an urban location, “we chose to recognize Japan’s technological strength—not by creating a futuristic design but by [allowing] those elements to melt into the background in a subtle way that is much closer to the overall Japanese aesthetic,” Azuma explains.
The building itself evokes the traditional, with an exterior that is overlaid in metal latticework, bearing a distinctive motif found on kimonos such as the ones worn by the hotel staff. Upon entering, guests are asked to remove and store their shoes as if they were visiting a home or inn. Because the entrance is important to Japanese culture, much of the first floor is dedicated not to a standard-issue lobby or lounge but to walls lined with wooden storage cubbies, Azuma says. Only the elliptically shaped red lacquer reception desk reveals that it is, in fact, a hotel.
An innovative organizational scheme upstairs presents essentially several mini ryokans, where each floor features six rooms situated along a tatami mat-clad corridor that leads to a semiprivate ochanoma, or tearoom. In this shared lounge space, furnished with sofas, desks, and well-stocked library shelves, guests can enjoy snacks and sake while reading, working, or socializing.
Traditional Japanese materials (sliding paper doors, paper walls, stone) abound in the bedrooms as well, with copious use of wood, including chestnut, bamboo, and cypress “in both solid and carved pieces, depending on the setting,” Azuma says. Their warm and varied hues provide almost all of the hotel’s color, bolstered by vermillion, black, and gold accents. A lighting scheme emphasizes indirect illumination, where gentle glows emanate from behind shoji screens, ceilings, and floor lamps.
Along with a spa, the hotel also offers a 10-table restaurant in the basement (complete with clay walls and rock formations) and a rooftop indoor-outdoor onsen—a communal bath fed by onsite hot springs. “We managed to create an urban ryokan that is filled with creative design touches from our artisans, and you can really feel the work that people have put into it,” says Azuma. “That sense gives each space a wonderful gentleness and richness.”
