Aman Tokyo and Kerry Hill: Japanese Architecture Above the City

From the street, Aman Tokyo gives little away. The hotel occupies the upper floors of Otemachi Tower, in one of the densest business districts in the capital, a few minutes from Tokyo Station and the moats of the Imperial Palace. Its presence at ground level is modest; the experience begins only once guests have risen through the building to the 33rd floor.

That transition is the key to the hotel. Aman Tokyo was designed by the late Kerry Hill, the Australian architect whose Singapore-based practice worked with Aman on several of its best-known properties. The Tokyo hotel was the sixth Aman to be designed by his studio, and it was an unusual commission: a brand long associated with remote resorts, placed at the top of an urban office tower.

A Japanese house, lifted into the sky

Hill’s response was to borrow from the traditional Japanese residence rather than from the vocabulary of the luxury hotel. The clearest expression is the lobby, whose ceiling rises some 30 metres. It is conceived as a vast paper lantern: washi stretched over a shoji-like frame, filtering daylight into a soft, even glow. The effect is less of grandeur than of stillness, a space that slows the pace of anyone who enters it.

The same principles run through the rest of the hotel. The material palette is deliberately narrow, built on wood, stone and washi paper. References to the engawa, the veranda that mediates between inside and outside in a traditional home, shape the way spaces are layered, while ikebana arrangements introduce a seasonal, living element into otherwise restrained interiors. There is little ornament; proportion, light and texture do the work.

Space as the real luxury

In a city where space is scarce, Aman Tokyo’s generosity is perhaps its most distinctive quality. Even the entry-level suites measure around 71 square metres, with floor-to-ceiling windows, shoji-style sliding screens and deep stone furo baths. Orientation gives each category its own character: some suites look over the Imperial Palace gardens, others face west towards the evening light or east across the city.

The spa extends the same logic. Spread over two floors and around 2,500 square metres, it is among the largest hotel spas in Tokyo, centred on a 30-metre indoor pool with views across the skyline, alongside onsen-style baths inspired by Japanese bathing traditions.

Urban luxury, redefined

More than a decade after it opened in 2014, Aman Tokyo remains a reference point for what urban luxury can be. Its lesson is that a city hotel does not need spectacle to feel exceptional. By translating the calm of a Japanese house into a high-rise, Hill created a place defined by quiet, privacy and a sense of time slowing down, qualities that are rare in any capital, and particularly in one as intense as Tokyo.

For travellers interested in architecture, the hotel is worth understanding as a building as much as a place to stay. It sits naturally alongside the city’s other design landmarks, explored in our design-led guide to Tokyo, and offers a rare opportunity to experience one of Kerry Hill’s late works from the inside.