A Look Inside Tokyo’s Royal Park Canvas - Ginza 8
The new design-focused hotel brand’s third establishment has a ‘vintage modern’ style that befits its Ginza location
With luxury brands, department stores and sleek lifestyle complexes lining its neat grid system of wide streets, Ginza has long stood out from other parts of Tokyo.
It’s this rarefied Ginza atmosphere that a new hotel project is aiming to tap into, having recently opening its doors in the heart of the district: The Royal Park Canvas Ginza 8.
Canvas is a new design-focused hotel brand launched last year by the Royal Park Hotels group, to add to their portfolio of ten other hotels across the country (Ginza is one of three new Canvas establishments: Nagoya opened first last year [SS1] and Osaka launched this June).
Located on a sedate side street in Ginza, the new hotel offers a serene respite from the crowds of shoppers on its doorsteps.
Kenji Muro, director of Tokyo-based design firm Garde, is responsible for the design of the public spaces, restaurant and a concept guestroom. The ground floor, which has walls of windows overlooking Ginza’s streets, is home to a contemporary tea counter called Saryu (serving teas by Kyoto cult favourite Nakamura Tea Life Store — refreshing pots of green tea by day, tea cocktails after dark).
Abstract splashes of greenery sit alongside contemporary art and dark wood furniture with an old-school edge. Behind the front desk, fashioned from antique-style wooden chests of drawers with brass handles, hangs a jigsaw puzzle-like installation by art collective Chim↑Pom. Juxtaposed textures and patterns is another theme, as reflected in the abstractly angular solid oak stools sitting on geometric tiled flooring.
A staircase takes guests upstairs to a plant-filled mezzanine area, where it’s all about music (of the strictly analogue variety). Here in the Music Lounge, guests can borrow a record player to take back to their room and choose from a selection of vinyls, many displayed on the wall.
The stairs continue up into the main Canvas Lounge, where the hotel’s key design them of ‘vintage modern’ shines through with particular flourish. An old-school Scandinavian feel prevails here, with clutches of 1950s vintage chairs from Denmark, low tables and dark green wall tiles. The space spills into Canvas Kitchen — a fully kitted kitchen space that wouldn’t look out of place in a plush apartment, used for general socialising and private events.
Just around the corner is another contemporary artwork: artist Lyota Yagi’s ‘shower’ is attached to the wall, unleashing a flood of sounds, rather than water.
The 121 guestrooms — many of which were designed by FIELD FOUR DESIGN OFFICE in Tokyo — are sleek, compact havens of dark woods, grey walls and white beds. The 13th floor is also home to a Garde-designed concept room, complete with a signature circular interior window.
TRANSIT GENERAL OFFICE, which also designed a second concept room, is behind the hotel’s 14th storey restaurant, Opus. Here guests will find a light, Scandinavian-inspired interior and menu, monochrome artworks plus — always a pleasant touch in central Tokyo — a rooftop terrace packed with green plants.
Inspired by the theme of ‘vintage, modern and timeless’, the design throughout the hotel aims to fuse the old with the new, ‘just like the historical city of Ginza’, according to Muro of Garde.
As he explains: ‘The space aims to bring the atmosphere of the streets of Ginza into the hotel.’
Text / Danielle Demetriou
