With its high ceiling and muted lighting, the capacious lobby of the Hotel Okura’s main building seemed like a huge, stylish cave. Against the cave walls, like the sighing of a disemboweled animal, bounced the muted conversations of people seated on the lobby’s sofas. The floor’s thick, soft carpeting could have been primeval moss on a far northern island. It absorbed the sound of footsteps into its endless span of accumulated time. – Haruki Murakami – 1Q84
This must be my favourite building in Tokyo so far. This large hotel was built for the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics and opened to the public two years before in 1962. Nested between the skyscrapers of Roppongi, it is quite striking how you first walk past the place and don’t recognise it all too much (probably because it isn’t very high). Upon closer inspection though, the place unfolds its uniqueness – a very functional and modern Eastern building with Western specifications.
