Making its home in Maebashi’s former Shiroiya Ryokan, SHIROIYA HOTEL has recently opened following an extensive renovation overseen by architect Sou Fujimoto, who designed the art- and design-focused hotel to become ‘the city’s living room’

It’s impossible to miss SHIROIYA HOTEL, with its 1970s facade emblazoned with bright typography proclaiming, ‘FROM THE HEAVENS, FROM THE PRAIRIES, FROM THE SEA, FROM THE MOUNTAINS.’

The text, by US artist Lawrence Weiner, sets a bold tone for guests arriving at SHIROIYA HOTEL, whose recent opening has placed the small city of Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, firmly on Japan’s creative map.

Designed by architect Sou Fujimoto, the 25-room hotel integrates the work of a plethora of artists, from Hiroshi Sugimoto, Ryan Gander and Hiraku Suzuki to Yoshio Shirakawa. It’s also home to four unique guestrooms designed by Fujimoto, artist Leandro Erlich, designer Jasper Morrison and architect Michele De Lucchi.

The project was masterminded by owner Hitoshi Tanaka, founder of Japanese eyewear company Jins, as a catalyst for revitalising his hometown of Maebashi, a city famed for its once thriving but now defunct silk industry. Highlighting Shiroiya’s community-inspired roots, Fujimoto explains, ‘SHIROIYA HOTEL was born from a mixture of city, landscape, architecture and art, while integrating many diversities within it. I want this place to be Maebashi’s living room and I hope that the hotel will go on developing together with Maebashi, and create the future of the city.’

Centre stage is the four-level Heritage Tower, a dramatic renovation of a 1975 building that once housed a ryokan inn. Behind the facade, Fujimoto excavated the interior, removing floors and walls to expose a minimalist concrete frame and empty spaces. The end result is an industrial-edged atrium, with sunlight flowing through its 15-metre-high skylights and the space dissected by Fujimoto’s white spiral staircase and a white tubular artwork by Erlich.

Further touches include a tumble of green plants, a red-brick herringbone floor (evoking Maebashi’s history of silk warehouses), a communal wooden table and scatterings of modern design classics, from Arik Levy’s Vibia lighting to a caramel Rodolfo Dordoni sofa and Alvar Aalto’s Cantilever chairs for Artek.

A contemporary take on Gunma cuisine is served at the RESTAURANT, which offers an imaginative menu supervised by chef Hiroyasu Kawate, founder of Tokyo’s Michelin-starred Florilège.

Fujimoto’s Heritage Tower guestrooms — white, minimal, industrial edges softened by Yoko Ando’s sheer curtains — each showcase an artist’s work (with a QR code for further information), plus concrete-inspired grey carpets. The De Lucchi-designed room has serene expanses of thousands of black wood shingles, traditionally used in roofing, alongside green walls, while Morrison’s ‘art crate’ room is encased entirely in wood.

An art-lined passageway — designed to encourage local interaction — connects the Heritage Tower with the new Green Tower, a grass-covered mound with cut-out windows and doors that’s home to seven guestrooms. At its apex is a digital artwork by Tatsuo Miyajima, plus a small hut with an art installation, alongside a Finnish-style sauna. A patisserie, designed by Japanese studio Tripster, is set to open soon.

The Green Tower is also home to Matcha-tei, a private dinner venue designed by New Material Research Laboratory, the architectural firm founded by Hiroshi Sugimoto and architect Tomoyuki Sakakida. Sunlight ripples into the intimate space through a fractured facade of 100-plus handcrafted layers of glass, and guests are seated at a Japanese cedar counter surrounded by matcha-green earthen plaster walls.

As Fujimoto emphasises, it’s all about creative collaboration. ‘The SHIROIYA HOTEL Project was completed in collaboration with many people. The shared idea was to combine aesthetics and values, so as to obtain harmony and diversity.’

Text / Danielle Demetriou