Bye-bye Okura

[Yokohammer]

I'm sure this news will have absolutely no effect on many of you, but old timers will sit up and take note.
The old Okura Hotel (across from the American Embassy) will be torn down and replaced with something modern and more profitable, I assume. There are very few places in Tokyo that remain as I remember them from the late 60s and early 70s, and the Okura is one of them. It's a place I go once in a while just to drink in the atmosphere and chill (and have a wicked BLT).

Bummer.

http://monocle.com/magazine/issues/75/final-check-out/

Rumours had been swirling for months and then it came in May, the news all lovers of modern Japanese architecture had feared: the redevelopment of Hotel Okura in Tokyo. The word “iconic” is tediously overused but this hotel, a landmark since 1962, fully deserves the label. In September 2015 the best bit of the most loved hotel in Tokyo will be torn down by its owners to make way for a 38-storey glass tower. It will be a heartbreaking and irreparable loss.

[Mike Oxlong]

Feels like some tragic cosmic balancing act where the castle keep gets rebuilt, and the hotel torn down.

[wagyl]

That has a balance: the keep was there originally for about 50 years, so is the Okura.

I will be sad to see it go, but I recognise that there is a commercial reality which has this result.

[Yokohammer]

No balance: I bet they won't be serving wicked BLTs at the castle.

Not to mention the Orchid Room, the Toh-ka-Lin Chinese restaurant, the Terrace café ... *sob* ... I can't go on ...

[yanpa]

Can't say I've ever been inside, alas, but I did walk past there not so long ago on one of my regular "strike out in random directions" walks to see what I can find, and I do remember thinking "Oh, so that's the Okura", and finding it to be quite a handsome representative of mid-Showa architecture.

Still, if there's one thing Tokyo desperately needs, it's 38-storey glass towers with a bunch of identikit chain restaurants and cafes in their basements.

Now, the American Embassy... nasty piece of work (at least the big square bit), looks like the administrative block from a Soviet-era industrial plant.

[Yokohammer]

If you get a chance it's worth a visit before they destroy it, I think. Just wander into the lobby and dig the atmosphere. The Okura is pretty much all wood. Warm, wonderful wood everywhere, which is a rarity nowadays. Somehow steel and glass just doesn't have the same vibe.

Another reason for my sense of loss is that, way back at the Dawn of Days when I was a high-school student in Tokyo, I had a summer job at the Okura and got to experience the whole behind-the-scenes thing too. It was a good time.




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[Russell]

Casualty of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics?

[yanpa]

There is certainly a big hotel boom going on.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Tokyo's iconic Okura hotel closes ahead of demolition

Tokyo's iconic Okura hotel has closed ahead of its demolition and redevelopment for the 2020 Olympics.

The hotel is considered a modernist masterpiece and a perfect representation of 1960s Japanese style.

A pair of glass towers designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, son of the Okura's original architect, will replace it.

Built in 1962, the hotel has been favoured by world leaders, celebrities and was even James Bond's preferred abode in You Only Live Twice.

[...]

The hotel's management say that the redevelopment is necessary for the hotel to keep its five-star rating.

"It is difficult for us now to provide a top Japanese hotel due to the building's age," an Okura spokeswoman told the AFP news agency.

The new hotel will have 510 rooms housed in towers reaching 41 storeys. It is due to open in 2019.

[...]

However, the decision to demolish the hotel has been controversial, with a social media campaign and petitions launched to save it.

The British design magazine Monocle described the closure as "a heartbreaking and irreparable loss".

I haven't been in Japan long enough to have any nostalgia for the Showa Era buildings like the Okura but it'd be hard for me to keep any knowing Monocle was a supporter.

[Taro Toporific]

...I haven't been in Japan long enough to have any nostalgia for the Showa Era buildings like the Okura but it'd be hard for me to keep any knowing Monocle was a supporter.

Good riddance.
The Hotel Okura is just an oppressive concrete slum building. For years my boss used its "famous" coffee lounge as a meeting place for important clients and it sucks in its drab/boring soviet design. It is obvious that the hotel stopped renovations and maintenance after the Bubble and it shows. Back in 1964 when I stayed at the then new hotel with my father, it sucked----low ceilings in the cramped guest rooms and halls, noisy elevator shafts, slime growing the air-conditioning vents, and the general atmosphere of an abandoned WWII concrete bunker.
Just tear it down and forget it.

[yanpa]

Compared to the Soviet-style factory block the US embassy occupies just down the road, it has some character (from the outside at least). Still, TIJ.

[Samurai_Jerk]

...I haven't been in Japan long enough to have any nostalgia for the Showa Era buildings like the Okura but it'd be hard for me to keep any knowing Monocle was a supporter.

Good riddance.
The Hotel Okura is just an oppressive concrete slum building. For years my boss used its "famous" coffee lounge as a meeting place for important clients and it sucks in its drab/boring soviet design. It is obvious that the hotel stopped renovations and maintenance after the Bubble and it shows. Back in 1964 when I stayed at the then new hotel with my father, it sucked----low ceilings in the cramped guest rooms and halls, noisy elevator shafts, slime growing the air-conditioning vents, and the general atmosphere of an abandoned WWII concrete bunker.
Just tear it down and forget it.

I never stayed there but I did have meetings there semi-regularly and my impression was pretty much like yours. I don't mind dilapidated Showa slum architecture for 200 yen a drink motsuyaki joints in Katsushika-ku or even the overpriced bars in Golden Gai but when you're calling yourself five star you better look it.

[matsuki]

Compared to the Soviet-style factory block the US embassy occupies just down the road, it has some character (from the outside at least). Still, TIJ.

Aging, moldy, cement...covered in a thin veneer of "character"

My limited experience there was the same as others, a meeting in the "famous" lounge...interesting place but 5 star hotel?

[yanpa]

Never been inside, but happy to believe you.

[Yokohammer]

I actually have some fond memories of the place.

I had a summer job at the Okura back in the late 60's (high school days for me), when it was still fairly new, so there's quite a bit of nostalgia there. Occasionally had dinner there with my dad through the 80's and 90's too. I have been several times in the past few years, and somehow the ageing aspect hasn't bothered me at all (probably balances nicely with my own "ageing aspect"). Personally, I'm sorry to see it go.

[Russell]

I stayed there a couple of years ago, but cannot remember the rooms well. Probably, that says enough. And it was not so expensive for a whole family to stay. And I did like them having an outdoor pool.

[legion]

A pair of glass towers designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, son of the Okura's original architect, will replace it.

I'm gonna take a wild guess the new building will be a rip off of a Belgian Theater

[kurogane]

Hehehe. I believe it's called International Inspiration

I seem to remember liking the lobby of the Okura and those of most of the Occupation behemoths in that neighbourhood well enough back in the 80s, but given my underwhelming experiences at any Japanese hotel that cost over 12,500 a night I have long since given up and stick with the Toyoko, especially since they are the only decent ones in the areas I tend to want to stay in. The common spaces of the fancy places are often quite pleasant and well done but that hardly compensates for the badly cleaned shoddy rooms and those fucking pillows. Do Japanese vacuums not have an edging tool to pick up the dust kittens that prowl the carrpet edges and corners?

Anyways, any recommendations for 4 or 5 star hotels that actually deserve the rating (and not just because White People like it because "It's JapaKneeeez")? I am thinking more as suggestions for my Sooshi Lover friends visiting Tokyo for work and business, but it would be nice to know of. The minimal standards would be: clean biggerish rooms with proper bedding, a vaccuum that knows what it's doing, and the usual in house amenities.

[Coligny]

a vaccuum that knows what it's doing, and the usual in house amenities.

If your standards are set to "sarajevo under siege circa 1994" maybe can do...

[dimwit]

While I get Yokohammer's sentimental attraction to the place, it looks like any number of identikit blanderific hotels I stayed at over the years. The fact that I can't even remember if I ever stayed in the place speaks volumes. It raises an question to me. Is there an actual western standard luxury hotel in Tokyo?

[kurogane]

Is there an actual western standard luxury hotel in Tokyo?

Yes, well put. Same idea as my question. Anybody?

[yanpa]

IIRC the Peninsula is the one the Brule chap creams over. Then there's the one in the Toranomon tower recently opened.

[kurogane]

Ahhhh, Creamed Brule, eh??? Sounds suspect. He is a goofball, after all. Good to know, though, thanks.

[Samurai_Jerk]

IIRC the Peninsula is the one the Brule chap creams over. Then there's the one in the Toranomon tower recently opened.

Right but then Monocle was an Okura fan so you need to take his opinion with a grain of rice.

I have a friend who is an uppity French millionaire and worked in the hotel asset management business for years that recommended the Shangri-La at Tokyo Station when I asked him for a place for my other friend and his wife (also strictly first-class fliers) when they visited Tokyo. They stayed there and my friend said it was really nice but not amazing. His nice would probably be amazing to most people.

[kurogane]

Interesting. I think what really bugs me is how much people that travel like your friends and have similar tastes and expectations and so should know better and can compare get all starry eyed and gushy just because It's JapanKneeeez!!!!!!! It's hard to hope for better when solicitous mediocrity is such a hit with the obvious target market. Especially since our ilk don't tend to do that anyways. I wouldn't mind trying, but I can see it ruining it more than just giving up and going with Toyoko.

But it's one more on the list, so thanks.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Interesting. I think what really bugs me is how much people that travel like your friends and have similar tastes and expectations and so should know better and can compare get all starry eyed and gushy just because It's JapanKneeeez!!!!!!! It's hard to hope for better when solicitous mediocrity is such a hit with the obvious target market. Especially since our ilk don't tend to do that anyways. I wouldn't mind trying, but I can see it ruining it more than just giving up and going with Toyoko.

But it's one more on the list, so thanks.

Funny you should say that. His wife said it was amazing because the service was so good but he didn't fall for that the way most do. In his wife's defense they were newlyweds so she probably wasn't used to that kind of travel yet.

[Yokohammer]

Part of the sadness is ... there's no economically sane way to build and decorate with wood to the standards that were the norm 50 years ago. Much skill and handwork that is simply not common today is required. The result is that almost everything is built with prefabbed metal, glass, and synthetic components that just don't have the vibe.

I totally get the economics, but I mourn the loss of detail and warmth.

[legion]

Most building interiors in Tokyo are identikit, drab, cheap and boring. Some of the outsides are quite good, but the lack of urban planning obscures this.

My first summer job was here

[kurogane]

Interesting. I think what really bugs me is how much people that travel like your friends and have similar tastes and expectations and so should know better and can compare get all starry eyed and gushy just because It's JapanKneeeez!!!!!!! ..........................

Funny you should say that. His wife said it was amazing because the service was so good but he didn't fall for that the way most do. In his wife's defense they were newlyweds so she probably wasn't used to that kind of travel yet.

Sounds about right. Nice that she enjoyed it so much at any rate. I don't think it's racist in an important way, but I believe a lot of nice white people get enough of a kick from brown people fawning over them they go googly. Japanese service either simply satisfies me or just bores me; any fancy service I have received was so Kabuki I could barely keep a straight face. What I want is a facility worth 4-5 times the going local price, like I would get in Vancouver, New York, or wherever except Japan (East Asia?) it seems. Oh, well. At Toyoko I get breakfast from the nice old cafeteria ladies. They make the pickles themselves you know.

[wagyl]

They make the pickles themselves you know.

I wonder if the hand made pickles are made in the same way as I have helped make hand made juice: at the local "Hand Made Centre" where you hire industrial machinery for the day, you just supply your own labour. Next door was the "Home Made Bakery" with industrial mixing machines and ovens for home made cakes, available for rent.