Where to Stay in Tokyo for Design: A Guide to the City’s Most Considered Hotels

Hotels shaped by architects

Tokyo’s best design hotels are rarely about a single style. They range from a 1962 modernist landmark rebuilt to look as it did, to a Kengo Kuma interior on floors 31 to 36 of a new tower. The Okura Tokyo was rebuilt as two buildings with 508 rooms and a faithfully recreated modernist lobby, and reopened in 2019; the story of its architect is told in our profile of Yoshio Taniguchi, the quiet architect of the Okura and Ginza Six. The Tokyo EDITION, Toranomon made Ian Schrager’s brand debut in Japan with interiors by Kengo Kuma and 206 rooms, and its arrival is covered in The Tokyo Edition, Toranomon Opens With Kengo Kuma.

Small, personal and nature-led

For a quieter idea of design, Trunk(Hotel) Yoyogi Park is a 25-room hotel on the edge of Yoyogi Park in Tomigaya, with balconies and a rooftop pool; its opening story explains the rooftop pool over the trees. 1 Hotel Tokyo sits at the top of Akasaka Trust Tower with 211 rooms, a Bamford spa and an indoor pool, and a longer account of its opening is on the Journal.

Towers, ryokan and new districts

Hoshinoya Tokyo is a ryokan in a tower in Otemachi, with 84 tatami rooms, a lounge on every floor and a natural hot spring on the top storey. Janu Tokyo opened in Azabudai Hills in 2024 as Aman Group’s first Janu hotel, with 122 rooms and a 4,000-square-metre wellness centre; see Janu Tokyo, Aman’s First Sister Brand Hotel, Opens. Aman Tokyo occupies the upper floors of Otemachi Tower, and Aman Tokyo and Kerry Hill: Japanese Architecture Above the City explains the design thinking behind it. Bulgari Hotel Tokyo takes the 40th to 45th floors of Tokyo Midtown Yaesu, above Tokyo Station, with 98 rooms by Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel.

How to choose

Choose Toranomon or Otemachi for business and city views, Tomigaya for parks and independent shops, Azabudai Hills for a new district built around wellness and art. If your priority is neighbourhood rather than design, read Where to Stay in Tokyo: The Best Hotels, District by District, and for the buildings themselves see A Design-Led Guide to Tokyo.