Kyoto's New Ace Hotel Juxtaposes Classic Americana and Japanese Culture
Roman Alonso, a principal of Commune Design, was supposed to spend all of this past March in Japan, putting the finishing touches on the Ace Hotel Kyoto— one of the 24 winners of AD’s inaugural Great Design Hotel Awards (see page 32). In a sign of the times, the AD100 designer instead supervised the project’s installation from Los Angeles via lengthy FaceTime meetings. As Ace Hotel’s first outpost in Asia, soon to make its official debut, the hotel is a tour de force of East/West fusion, ingeniously conceived and executed by the progressive minds at Ace in collaboration with not only Commune but the acclaimed Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. “We tried to honor Kyoto’s history by evoking the scale and materials of the city’s vibrant street culture,” Kuma says of his architectural scheme, which involved the consolidation of the 1926 Kyoto Central Telephone Company building with a contemporary ground-up addition.
Alonso adds, “Since this is a Western hotel in Asia, we underscored the cultural synthesis by combining the work of traditional and contemporary Japanese artists and designers with that of American and European designers who were influenced by Japan.” That strategy of cross-pollination comes to life with particular brio in the hotel’s main restaurant (above), which juxtaposes classic Americana such as Eames chairs backed in pony-skin leather with enormous eight-by-seven-foot light fixtures handcrafted by a Japanese family that has been making festival lanterns for 200 years. While much has been made— and rightly so—about the significance of home during the fraught era of COVID-19, the time spent in lockdown has naturally aroused a longing for better days of unfettered travel and discovery. “Ace Hotel Kyoto is the culmination of over 20 years of being inspired by Japan,” says Kelly Sawdon, Ace’s chief brand officer. “The city reminds us of how magical and meaningful travel can be, and we look forward to welcoming future travelers everywhere.” acehotel.com
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
