Ace Hotel Kyoto

Project Details

Project Description

FROM ACE HOTEL KYOTO:

Since the beginning of Ace, we’ve dreamt of Japan. We’ve spent decades admiring Japanese culture and craftsmanship, collaborating from afar with Japanese artists and brands whose work we love — BEAMS, Porter, Isetan, Takahiro Miyashita of Number (N)ine, Kenzo Minami, Hender Scheme and Traveler’s Company, to name a few, hoping for the chance to put down roots.

Now, we’re proud to announce we’re partnering with NTT Urban Development Corporation for Ace Hotel Kyoto, a new cultural hub as part of the redevelopment of ShinPuhKan. Designed in part by the famed architect Kengo Kuma, Ace Hotel Kyoto will open in Winter 2019 in an area with a valuable industrial and imperial legacy. Kuma’s designs blend new with old, incorporating renovations of the historic building—erected in the mid 1920s as the Kyoto Central Telephone Office—into the new build.

Kyoto is one of the most celebrated cities in the world, admired for an unparalleled social, creative, cultural and architectural dynamism. It’s been heralded as a creative wellspring, drawing artists here for centuries as a restorative, beautiful and generative refuge—muse to everyone from David Bowie, John & Yoko and David Byrne to Steve Jobs, Haruki Murakami and Akira Kurosawa. Ace Hotel Kyoto will help foster that same fertile, creative spirit for future generations, while paying homage to the rich imperial history that came before.

Kengo Kuma is the principal architect for Ace Hotel Kyoto. World-renowned for his work in Japan and abroad—including the Asakusa Culture and Tourism Center in Tokyo, the Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum and the forthcoming Olympic Stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Games—Kengo Kuma’s designs embrace natural materials and light, and create spaces for interaction and comfort. He is a fitting partner for Ace Hotel, with our history of and admiration for innovative design, creative re-use and locally-minded collaboration. With Kengo Kuma at the helm, Ace Hotel Kyoto will stand as a monument to the beauty and unique legacy of Kyoto, a destination for culturally curious travelers and Kyoto residents alike.

“The thought was to create a hotel that is connected to Kyoto and open to the surrounding area. To begin with, the proposition was to create a dense garden where communities, as well as the past and the present, are connected to this venerable land with its various gardens, which have existed since the Heian period. The existing Kyoto central telephone office building was designed by one of the great Japanese modern architects Tetsuro Yoshida. Through the central courtyard, this red brick building will converse and create a new harmony with a wooden grid system that reminisces traditional Kyoto. The integrity of Aneyakoji road and Higashino-toin road was preserved through the delicate use of fine louvers and meshes. These louvers and meshes also act as environmental devices, which gently filters light and wind. Furthermore, the concrete was mixed with iron oxide to produce a fine warm color, which cannot be fabricated by paint. Every detail and material was thought through to connect the building, land and history together. Ace Hotel is changing the definition of the hotel by connecting the surrounding area with the hotel, and the community with the guests. This is gently changing the air of the world.”—Kengo Kuma.

Ace Hotel’s approach to design is unorthodox, with a reverence for the past and an eye to the future. We take into account the spirit of the neighborhood we live in—its history of art, architecture and culture — and use that to create something fresh and energized. With all our programming and developments, we celebrate people whose work inspires us. Collaborating with like-hearted artists and craftspeople, Ace Hotel Kyoto will be a testament to our love of the remarkable city of Kyoto. We’re so lucky to be able to inhabit an historic building in a city with such a rich history, and to work alongside architect Kengo Kuma to give it new life. Kengo Kuma—known for his understated, poetic designs that emphasize humility and quality of material — will help Ace Hotel Kyoto become a space for joy and interaction, harmonious with its environment and in quiet dialogue with Kyoto’s past and future legends.

Centrally located, the neighborhood around the hotel sits on the former grounds of the imperial palace and is rumored to once have been the home of Japanese samurai. Ace Hotel Kyoto will live just a stone’s throw from cultural treasures like the Nishiki Market, the Museum of Kyoto and Kyoto Art Center, and surrounded by classic shops such as Kamesuehiro (confectionary store), Shoyeido (incense store) and Miyawaki Baisenan (fan store). Taking cues from Kyoto’s cultural history, reverence for nature, quality of craftsmanship and delight in the everyday, Ace Hotel Kyoto will be a rich, sensory experience, viewed within and beyond the city as a hub for aspirational dreamers and creative trailblazers.