Imperial Hotel, Tokyo

The original Imperial Hotel

The Imperial Hotel, Tokyo is a hotel in Tokyo. It was built in the late 1880s at the request of the Japanese aristocracy to increase Western visitors to Japan. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.^[1] The hotel site is located just south of the Imperial Palace grounds, next to the previous location of the Palace moat.^[1]

The modern hotel overlooks the Palace, the 40-acre (16 ha) western-style Hibiya Park, and the Ginza neighborhood.^[1] Three buildings have stood on the hotel site, each of which embodied the finest western design of its era.^[1] The hotel eventually slipped into decay as time took its toll. In a controversial decision, it was decided to demolish the old hotel and replace it with a high-rise structure, to maximize the use of land.^[1]

Imperial Hotel, Tokyo Media

The original Imperial Hotel, designed by Yuzuru Watanabe (1890)
Peacock Chair, designed for the hotel
Imperial Hotel Tokyo plans design by Wright
Final perspective drawing by Wright. Over 700 drawings were created for this project.
Imperial Hotel Sign, 1922, demolished 1967, Tokyo, Japan, photo by Anonymous, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC
The hotel (left) shortly after the 1923 earthquake (on the right burning is the Kangyō Bank)
Shortly after the earthquake (the Imperial is seen in the top right)
The entrance courtyard of Wright's Imperial Hotel, as recreated near Nagoya in the Meiji-Mura Museum
Entrance Hall, which was reconstructed in the Meiji Mura Museum