Kengo Kuma’s Hotels: Kyoto, Tokyo and the Wooden Grid

Kengo Kuma and Associates is known worldwide for its stadiums and museums, among them Japan’s National Stadium and the Audeum in Seoul. Over the past decade it has also become the architect of three of the new hotels that most changed the map of Kyoto and Tokyo.

Ace Hotel Kyoto

Ace Hotel Kyoto was announced in April 2018 as the brand’s first hotel in Japan, for opening in winter 2019. Kuma converted a red-brick building of the 1920s by Tetsuro Yoshida in central Kyoto, near Nishiki Market, adding a wooden grid inspired by traditional Kyoto architecture and fine louvres and meshes to filter light and wind. He described the aim as a hotel connected to Kyoto and open to its surroundings, with local artists and craftspeople working on the interiors. Our report is in Ace Hotel Kyoto Opens.

The Tokyo EDITION, Toranomon

On 20 October 2020 The Tokyo EDITION, Toranomon opened on floors 31 to 36 of the 38-storey Tokyo World Gate tower, with 206 rooms, 22 of them suites. The brand is Ian Schrager’s, in partnership with Marriott International and Mori Trust, and Kuma is credited as co-designer. The restaurants include Blue Room, Jade Room with a rooftop Sky Garden, and the Gold Bar, led by the chef Tom Aikens. See our opening report.

Capella Kyoto

The newest is Capella Kyoto, the brand’s first hotel in Japan, with bookings from 22 March 2026. Kuma designed it with Brewin Design Office of Singapore, on the former Shinmichi Elementary School site in the Miyagawa-cho geiko district, near Kennin-ji and the Kamo River. It has 89 rooms, six onsen suites with private hot-spring baths, and a restored Kaburenjo Theatre that stages performances through the hotel. We report the opening in Capella Kyoto Opens.

What they share

Two of the three sit in Kyoto, where the decade’s other openings are surveyed in Kyoto’s decade of new hotels. At the Ace, the wooden grid is the part that reads most clearly as his.