The Hotel Okura, a favored Tokyo lodging for US presidents, movie stars and other celebrities, yesterday closed the doors of its landmark half-century-old main building to make way for a pair of glass towers ahead of the 2020 Olympics.
The redo raised an outcry from those who love the Okura’s unique melange of modernism and traditional Japanese aesthetics.
However, social media campaigns, a petition and other efforts to “Save the Okura” just underscored the futility of resisting Tokyo’s flood-tide of pre-Olympics urban renewal. Other major landmarks, such as the decades-old fish market in Tsukiji and the National Stadium also are being replaced over the protests of many who are sad to see them go.
Photo: AP
In a city where much downtown real estate is still worth more than US$250,000 per square meter, the commercial imperative is inexorably skyward. The horizontal lines of the 11-story Okura main building, with its “sea cucumber” tiles, are dwarfed by nearby residential and office towers.
Despite the appeal of the building’s lavish furnishings and subtle lighting, it does not meet modern earthquake standards and is struggling to compete with newer luxury hotels, such as the recently opened Andaz, just down the street.
The Okura’s management said a new structure is needed to keep the hotel one of Japan’s best, and to retain its status as a mainstay for diplomacy and business dealing since the building opened in 1962, ahead of the 1964 Olympics.
Then, it had “state-of-the-art infrastructure, incorporating the most advanced electrical, communications and building technologies available,” the company said in a statement.
Now, the hotel “has aged gravely and so have our guest rooms. They make it difficult for us to provide the comfort and luxury to our guests as a top hotel in Japan,” it said.
The building was to close after a “Finale Concert” and ceremony yesterday evening in its lobby, a spacious venue that has been the site of much deal-making over the years: The Okura is just across the street from the US Embassy, and those involved say many high-level meetings were held there to elude Japanese media.
It has been a “home away from home” for many US government officials, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said during a visit earlier this year.
“I have spent countless evenings in the Okura and will always have fond memories of it,” Carter said.
While the vibe of the building to be razed is distinctly 1960s, much of its decor is meant to evoke the Zen-inspired crafts and elegance of ancient Japan, with tortoise-shell patterned lights, ornate latticework, and patterns of diamond, ginkgo leaf, bamboo, heron, wisteria and fish-scale inlaid in many of its walls.
The new buildings is to preserve the traditional design elements and “tranquility” of the original and preserve, reinstall or replicate its designs and ornamentation to the extent it is legally and technically feasible, management said. The new structures are being designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, who is best known outside Japan for overseeing the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
He also is the son of the architect who designed the Okura’s main building, Yoshiro Taniguchi. The Harvard-trained Yoshio Taniguchi’s style is more minimalist than his father’s, yet still distinctively Japanese.
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