Inside Aman Group’s First Janu Hotel in Tokyo’s Azabudai Hills
Janu Tokyo marks Aman Group’s first step into a more connected, urban hospitality experience, blending local influences with a global spirit, all designed by longtime Aman collaborator Jean-Michel Gathy’s Denniston
From breakfast on the fourth floor, the Janu Tokyo guest is immersed in the heart of Thomas Heatherwick’s utopian vision for the Azabudai Hills precinct. A steady stream of students and office workers emerges from Kamiyacho Station, filing into the Pelli Clarke & Partners-designed Mori JP Tower and the neighbouring British School. What’s missing is the banality of city life: the joggers, dog-walkers and garbage trucks, signs of localism that are easily found in the immediate surrounds. Azabudai Hills is still a big mall and this is a hotel within one, reaping the benefits of such: an abundance of retail and dining options, and in inclement weather, protection from the outside world.
The Janu guest, according to the brand’s parent Aman Group, skews younger than their older Aman siblings, with a heavier focus on dining, drinking, socialising and well-being, rather than the privacy and seclusion for which the group is known. While it’s impossible to avoid comparisons to Aman Tokyo, the new brand has been very clearly positioned to meet the needs and preferences of a different traveller. With its name originating from the Sanskrit word for ‘soul’, the world’s first Janu property (there are 12 more on the way) has found itself at the heart of something, rather than as an escape from it.
The arrival at Janu Tokyo begins either from a landscaped driveway at street level that inserts the guest directly underneath the lobby from the immaculately maintained surrounding streets, or for the more nimble traveller, a discreet automated door inside the equally maze-like mall. The labyrinthine property, if we’re following Heatherwick’s vision for the district, is like a city within a city within a city. Across thirteen floors, the 122-key hotel is home to eight bars and restaurants, a cavernous pool and a seemingly endless wellness facility, all designed by Jean-Michel Gathy’s Kuala Lumpur-based studio Denniston.
As with many new luxury hotels in Japan focused on — and priced for — an inbound market, Denniston has attempted to straddle the divide between offering a familiarity in the design language, comfort perhaps to an increasingly globalised guest, while ensuring the place still feels like Tokyo. Rugs that riff on tatami greet guests at the room’s entry while sliding shoji-like screens wrap the bathroom in a private, glowing cocoon. Decorative wattle and daub sections — known as tsuchikabe in Japanese — are framed by ornate European-influenced forms above bedheads and daybeds, reminiscent of the moulding found in a French mansion. This cultural convergence is rendered rather literally in the lamps that sit beside the bed: traditional European shades are imprisoned in geometric fabric lanterns, visible only when illuminated.
Most guestrooms at Janu Tokyo enjoy balconies, a rarity for new hotels in Tokyo, offering views over both the immediate district and the greater city beyond. Starting at 55 square metres, private spaces are generously proportioned and feature expansive bathrooms with tubs at their hearts; a palette of warm greys, charcoals and beiges is threaded throughout the interiors, finishes and furnishings. Janu Tokyo also hosts a vibrant collection of art by the likes of Haruko Tsuji, Naoto Kashiwagi, Sakuho Ito, Tsutomu Yamamoto, Koji Hirato and Los Angeles-based Irena Orlov.
When guests are not exploring that city or ensconced in their rooms, eight drinking and dining venues are on hand to cater to various gustatory whims: Italian food market-inspired Janu Mercato features full-height windows and a sculpture that resembles a huge olive tree at the core of its dining room, while a French-inspired patisserie is intimate in scale but grand in impression with its Calacatta Oro marble counter and soaring ceiling, striking lighting and palette of blond oak and stone. The global offering continues with Janu Grill and Cantonese diner Hu Jing. Closer to home are two Japanese eateries: Iigura, a timber-clad omakase sushi restaurant complete with a hinoki countertop, while charcoal grill Sumi offers sumibiyaki around an open kitchen, its industrial finishes and dim lighting overlooking the gently pulsing lights of the city beyond. Janu Bar and Janu Lounge & Garden Terrace round out the offering.
But more than anything else, it’s Janu’s wellness facilities that leave guests in awe. Beyond the pool, with its vast lounging areas and hydrotherapy offerings, are nine treatment rooms equipped with everything from wood-clad saunas and hammams to LED light therapy. The 340-square-metre gym is joined by five studios for group exercise, provisioned for activities such as indoor cycling, yoga, Pilates and meditation, plus unique amenities like a golf simulator and Tokyo’s first hotel boxing ring. Nowhere else is it more evident that while Aman is for a specific few, Janu aims to welcome the many.
Text by Jeremy Smart
Images by Ichi Nakamura & Robert Rieger
