Japan’s First Edition Hotel Opens in Tokyo

The newly opened Tokyo Edition, Toranomon — the brand’s first Japan outpost — has all the trappings for which founder Ian Schrager has come to be known, combined with the minimal and contemplative touches of renowned architect Kengo Kuma

When an opportunity arose for legendary New York hotelier Ian Schrager to open a property in Tokyo, he instantly reached out to one person: Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. ‘It was great to go to him and say, “I want you to do a hotel, but I don’t want it to look Japanese”,’ says Schrager, founder of New York’s cult Studio 54 and widely regarded as the creator of the original boutique hotel, after opening Morgans Hotel in 1984. 

‘I said, “I want your approach, your aesthetic, your refinement, your simplicity and the purity of your vision — but I don’t want people to come in and say it’s a Japanese hotel, because that would be a failure,”’ Schrager says of his brief to Kuma. ‘The whole point is not being able to label it, to categorise it or put it into a box. That’s what excites people.’

The result is The Tokyo EDITION, Toranomon, which opened in October 2020 and marks the long-awaited arrival of the EDITION brand in Japan (a second EDITION is set to open in the Ginza district in 2021). The 206-room Toranomon hotel — a collaboration between Schrager, Marriott International and Mori Trust — spans the upper levels of the 38-storey Tokyo World Gate skyscraper in the Kamiyacho business district.

Jungles, Buddhist temples and rainbow gems — all interwoven with hints of Japan — are among an exotic array of creative themes at the new hotel, which offers a fresh take on traditional hospitality concepts. 

In the ground floor entrance, dramatic walls of veined black Nero Marquina marble and a white-lit cross cove ceiling (plus an ethereal sculpture by artist Mariko Mori) set a sleek urban tone. Elevators whisk visitors up to the 31st floor, with doors sliding open to reveal design classic How High the Moon, the minimalist metal mesh armchair by late designer Shiro Kuramata. A corridor of light travertine segues into the two-storey lobby, which is home to a jungle-like burst of more than 500 plants of 25 species (from sword ferns to alocasia) that fill every corner.

Inspired by Buddhist temple layouts, a string of spaces fan off the lobby, beneath a Kuma-esque ceiling of slatted wooden eaves. Among them is Blue Room restaurant, with ocean-blue scalloped velvet seating and views of Tokyo Tower, and the Lobby Bar, with a gleaming white marble bar, shelves of glass decanters, and window-side seats snugly cocooned by plants and diaphanous curtains.

Signature restaurant The Jade Room (with menus by British chef Tom Aikens) and its adjacent Garden Terrace will open next year, as will ground-floor Gold Bar at EDITION.

Guest rooms offer a serene retreat, with expanses of white stained oak, slatted wood screens, light upholstery, Le Labo amenities and oxidised bronze fixtures, with touches of Japan in gold-leaf artworks on the wall — plus, of course, scene-stealing city views (15 rooms have their own plant-filled outdoor terraces).

For Schrager, the allure of Japan dates back as early as 1977, when he staged Issey Miyake’s first US show in Studio 54. ‘There was a very pure, simple, refined approach to everything, a very strong aesthetic. It just had a big impact on me,’ he recalls. ‘Tokyo is a must-be-in city. It’s a 24-hour, international gateway city. I’ve always loved Japan.’

Text by Danielle Demetriou
Images by Nikolas Koenig