Hotels / Tokyo
The last detail
Tokyo’s architectural masterpieces continue to topple in the name of progress but with the painstakingly faithful recreation of Hotel Okura’s incomparable modernist lobby (albeit in a new skyscraper), a window to the past remains – and traditional craftsmanship has been rekindled.
When the main wing of the Hotel Okura in Tokyo was demolished in 2015 there was a lingering sense of loss at the disappearance of an irreplaceable slice of Japanese modernism. Created in 1962 by the architect Yoshiro Taniguchi, with the help of an exceptional group of artists and craftsmen, the Okura’s peerless sense of time and place peaked with the famous lobby, a space so atmospheric that its power remained undimmed 50 years on. To idle in the airy lobby or sip a martini in the smoky Orchid Bar was to wallow in a Tokyo that is fast disappearing…
