This Kyoto Hotel is More Like an Art Collector’s Home
A palette of cool greys backgrounds an impressive art collection at node, a 25-room hotel designed as a comfortable residential experience
It’s impossible to take more than a few steps without being distracted by a work of art, from abstract oil paintings and monochrome photography to a live floral installation. This is perhaps little surprise, bearing in mind node hotel, a new boutique property in Kyoto, was inspired by the idea of spending a night in the home of a private art collector.
Located on a quiet, central street in Shijo Nishinotoin, the 25-room hotel is housed in a Seiichiro Takeuchi-designed narrow five-level structure with a facade of glass and concrete designed.
Its creative credentials swing into focus the moment the doors open: a graphically lined black and white painting by Japanese artist Tomoo Gokita hangs behind the concrete front desk (alongside a coterie of hip young staff in collarless black uniforms).
Meanwhile, a glance up reveals an organically tumbling floral arrangement on the ceiling by Tokyo florists Farver, an installation designed to evolve naturally from fresh to dried over time.
The entire ground floor — narrow and deep — has gallery-like studded concrete walls and floors that provide a modern but low-key backdrop to the art collection and exhibitions. Near the front, it’s impossible to miss two jewel-bright oil paintings, blurred to abstraction, by rising star Yukimasa Ida. A curated selection of artworks by a roll call of big-name artists follows, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Cy Twombly, Barry McGee and Bernard Frize among them.
A long narrow table also runs through the heart of the space, leading to a bar at the rear, complete with double-height ceiling and a wall of glass framing views of a green vertical garden alongside two bold Nobuyoshi Araki photographs.
The guestrooms, which span the second to fifth level of the building, are similarly cloaked in swathes of contemporary matte grey, from the walls and ceilings to the headboards and bedding (even the yukata-style gowns are grey), making the perfect foil for the artworks. ‘In order to showcase the furniture and artworks at their best, we utilised a grey monotone palette to enhance the individuality of each piece,’ architect Takeuchi explains.
Guestroom artworks range from intensely vivid photography by Eikoh Hosoe to montages of images by Barry McGee as well as Katsuaki Shigeno, Shinro Ohtake and Kei IMAZU among them.
New York- and Kyoto-based Daisuke Enomoto is behind the hotel’s art curation, interior design and bespoke furniture, which was created by Indian Creek Fete, the Kyoto furniture design company he co-owns.
Summing up the concept of the hotel, which is owned by a local real estate agency, Enomoto explains, ‘It’s like staying in the house of an art collector. We want guests to feel close to the art and enjoy it.’
Text / Danielle Demetriou
Images / Kazuya Sudo
