before destruction
film stills from Okura by HUGO TILLMAN
By the time you read this article, the Hotel Okura’s Main Wing, built in 1962 — a fantastic testament to Japanese modernist architecture — will be closed and, sadly, destroyed. It will be gone to make room for a new tower structure, in anticipation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Designed by the architects Yoshiro Taniguchi and Hideo Kosaka, it housed works by the woodblock print artist Shiko Munakata and the ceramic master Kenkichi Tomimoto. It’s difficult to imagine that this perfect interpretation of traditional Japanese architecture is gone forever, along with its murals, paper screens, pendant lanterns, tearoom, and famous Orchid Room and Bar. This was considered Tokyo’s most-loved hotel.
The Okura Lanterns in the main lobby and entrance hall owe their unique shape — Kirikodama-gata (The Hexahedral Pattern) — to hexahedral gems
The decorative wall finish in the entrance to the banquet hall represents a faithful reproduction of 13th to 16th century brocades (Nishikibari, or Silk Finish)
[Table of contents]
Night Pictures
by Olivier Zahm, Stéphane Feugère, and Brad Elterman with a portfolio by Kate Simon
by Thomas Lenthal
by Jeffrey Deitch
by Arnaud Viviant
by Angelo Flaccavento
by John Jefferson Selve
by Mehdi Belhaj Kacem
by Olivier Zahm
by Sven Schumann
by Olivier Zahm
by Glenn O'Brien
by Olivier Zahm
by Olivier Zahm
by Robi Rodriguez
by Camille Bidault-Waddington
by Petra Collins
text by Paul Preciado
by Alex Antitch
by Juergen Teller
by Casper Sejersen
by Benjamin Alexander Huseby
by Theo Wenner
text by Karley Sciortino
by Sandy Kim
by Andreas Larsson
by Katja Rahlwes
by Giasco Bertoli
by Gianni Oprandi
by Olivier Zahm
by Stephan Crasneanscki
by Olivier Zahm and Donatien Grau
by Hugo Tillman