Ace Hotel Kyoto Opens in Kengo Kuma’s Shin-Puh-Kan

Ace Hotel Kyoto soft-launched on 11 June 2020, the brand’s first hotel in Japan. The 213-room hotel forms part of Shin-Puh-Kan, a complex in central Kyoto developed by NTT Urban Development that combines a historic building with new construction.

The older half is the 1926 red-brick Kyoto Central Telephone Company building by architect Tetsuro Yoshida. Kengo Kuma, as lead architect, set a new wing with a timber grid alongside it, describing the aim as “a dense garden where communities, as well as the past and the present, are connected”. A ground-floor marketplace links directly to the Kyoto subway.

Kuma’s facade uses concrete mixed with iron oxide to give warmth without paint, with fine louvres and mesh screens to filter light and wind at street level. Inside, guest rooms have ash ceilings and slate-tiled bathrooms.

Interiors are by Commune Design, Ace’s long-standing partner. Design principal Roman Alonso drew on historic East–West exchanges such as the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Charlotte Perriand with Japanese craftspeople. Artist Samiro Yunoki designed the hotel’s logo and typeface, its noren and banners, and original artworks placed in every room, while a large textile by the Shobu Gakuen artist community hangs above check-in and Shigaraki ceramic tiles line the gallery and bar.

The food and drink roster at launch included Stumptown Coffee Roasters’ first location in Japan, Piopiko, a cocktail bar and taco lounge by chef Wes Avila, and Mr. Maurice’s Italian, an Italian-American osteria by chef Marc Vetri. An all-day restaurant by chef Naomi Pomeroy was scheduled to follow later in 2020.