About Okura | The Okura Tokyo (2024)

Tranquil Lobbies

The Okura Tokyo has lobbies designed in the spirit of the original hotel’s aesthetic, both in the Okura Heritage Wing and the Okura Prestige Tower. Reminiscent of a Japanese tokonoma alcove, the Okura Heritage lobby has no ornamentation on the floor and ceiling. The front wall is decorated with a Japanese paper mural based on the motif from the scroll of the Heian Period poetry collection The Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry. The mural is a section of a decorative wall moved from the Heian Room in the main building. The Okura Prestige Lobby is a faithful reproduction of the much-adored former main building lobby, with the latest technologies. Both new lobbies were designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, whose father, Yoshiro Taniguchi, designed the previous main building lobby.

The original main building lobby was designed by Yoshiro Taniguchi, one of the 20th century’s leading Japanese architects. Taniguchi’s skillful application of a Japanese sensibility within the context of modernist architectural methods was in perfect accord with the hotel’s philosophy. Bringing the space he created back to life, the Okura Prestige Tower Lobby stands as evidence that the hotel’s founding philosophy lives on. The original lobby aimed above all for a tranquil and composed atmosphere. The new design revives the commodious lobby, dotted with plum flower motif tables and chairs.

The Okura Prestige Tower lobby features a design that beautifully balances light and shadow. The Okura Lanterns suspended from the ceiling are especially striking. Inspired by Kofun Period ornamental balls of crystal, the lanterns envelop light on a pendant of five polyhedrons. They have been newly equipped with LED and recreate the atmospheric lighting atmosphere in the original main lobby. One side of the room lets in soft natural light through a wall finished in oma-shoji (grid-pattern shoji) and kumiko traditional latticed woodwork. The new lobby faces a direction different from its predecessor, and allowing in light from the south. Lighting is subtly adjusted throughout the day in accord with the changes in natural light.

The Heian Room in the Hotel Okura main building became one of Japan’s most prestigious large ballrooms, the setting for numerous international conferences, appearances by celebrities, and other major events. The Okura Tokyo carries on that tradition with the new Heian Room. While the former Heian Room was decorated with a wall mural dedicated to The Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry, a designated National Treasure, the new Heian Room features a wall mural with a motif based on the ornamental paper used for the Introduction to the Kokin Wakashu, an anthology of old and modern poems written in the Japanese poetic form known as waka, also a National Treasure, which is in the collection of the Okura Museum of Art. The designs were enlarged, made into woodblocks, and then hand-printed on handmade Japanese paper. The delicate color combinations and texture of the materials truly capture the essence of the Japanese aesthetic.

The examples of Japanese beauty in The Okura Tokyo are not always immediately obvious. For example, the wall adorned with four-petal flowers in the Okura Prestige Tower Lobby was designed in his final year by ceramic artist and former Living National Treasure Kenkichi Tomimoto from his sickbed, at the request of Yoshiro Taniguchi, who designed the main building lobby. The pattern, based on the motif of Japan’s unique orchid, is a faithful reproduction of the original main building lobby’s Tatsumura art textile design, and has been newly woven to achieve a three-dimensional effect. The interior transom windows, illuminated hemp-leaf pattern, wisteria-motif chandeliers and other interior details provide glimpses of Japan’s ancient aesthetic.

An embodiment of the wabi-sabi aesthetic and Japanese antiquity, this tea room was completed two years after the Hotel Okura opened, on the 7th floor of the main building. It is named Chosho-an, which is a pseudonym for the hotel’s founder. The four-and-a-half tatami-mat space is a replica of the Yuin tea pavilion of the Urasenke school, a National Cultural Treasure. A masterpiece in the sukiya style, Chosho-an was built by the renowned master carpenter Sotoji Nakamura. At the Okura Tokyo, Chosho-an has been moved to the Okura Heritage Wing, to a spot right next to the Yamazato Japanese restaurant. This authentic tea room, which one least expects to find inside a modern building in the middle of the city, is sure to awaken an appreciation of the tea ceremony for guests from both Japan and abroad.

The Okura logo design is a combination of three gingko leaves. The building also includes many other pattern designs styled after the gingko leaf. The idea was conceived by Iwajiro Noda, the hotel’s president at the time of its initial opening. He was inspired by looking at a gingko tree on the hotel grounds from his office. Along with the gingko leaf, another frequently used variation is the hishi (traditional diamond-shape) pattern. The hishi pattern dates back to the 6th century and has taken a great variety of shapes. Gokaibishi (five overlapping hishi pattern) also forms the Okura family crest.

The Okura Tokyo’s restaurants and bars use some 500 varieties of silverware. These varieties include many with nature motifs. For example, some cutlery are engraved with the Mount Fuji mark and “1962”. The Mount Fuji mark is from 1962, when the Hotel Okura opened. In other words, cutlery from that time is still in use today. Likewise, large platters with grapevine reliefs are examples of the splendid technique of Japanese artisans. The silverware is silver-plated nickel-silver with a matte finish and remains in use thanks to meticulous maintenance.

The Okura Tokyo has gardens that enable guests to fully enjoy the flora of each passing season. The walking path begins at the Okura Square water pool, positioned as if enveloped by the Prestige Tower and the Heritage Wing. The garden features dynamic variations in ground levels, measuring 19 meters at its highest point, where stones have been arranged in a waterfall motif. There is also a pond full of iris and rabbitear iris, and a huge and historically significant gingko tree. All of these elements come together to compose a Japanese landscape that evokes the passing of the four seasons. Stone monuments and garden lanterns from the Okura Museum of Art collection are placed along some of the paths, adding an artistic touch.

Originally, the Hotel Okura had a dry landscape garden on the rooftop called Kyokusui Garden. The garden was inspired by kyokusui no utage, an elegant leisure entertainment during which Heian nobility composed tanka poems while drinking sake, as cups filled with sake floated by them in a stream. Taking Kyokusui Garden as a motif, the new garden is a place where visitors can feel the sensation of flowing water. Incorporating rock garden elements, the garden is filled with a variety of visual novelties, including a 12-ton stone.