Construction of the Hotel Okura, in the Toranomon district of Tokyo, was completed in 1962. The goal of founder Kishichiro Okura, famed entrepreneur and hotelier, was a hotel fully satisfying global standards while exuding tradition and fine craftsmanship found only in Japan.
With the arrival of the year 2000, nearly four decades after the hotel’s completion, Japan found itself in the midst of a steady series of legal revisions. Following extensive seismic testing, the judgment was reached that the need existed for extensive earthquake-resistant retrofitting. As a result, in August 2015, the hotel’s main building was demolished to make way for a new chapter in the Okura’s history.
The key mission of this renewal was to advance the reconstruction in a means enabling a sublime blend of tradition and innovation to be passed on into the next era. Four years later, in September 2019, the fully reconstructed Okura Tokyo opened its doors for business. To the surprise of many, the newly completed lobby, widely extolled as a “modernist architecture masterpiece,” was reproduced with contours closely resembling the original.
Placed at the entrance, however, was a large water pond conceived by Yoshio Taniguchi as a signature architectural touch. Behind the large flower vase at the front of the entrance, meanwhile, is an freestanding wall decorated in gold. The rattan-style screens of the Okura Salon convey a pleasing sense of transparency, engendering a rich sensation of spaciousness. There is a seamless flow between the restored portions and added design. This maintains the profile of the lobby lingering in people’s memories, while engineering its rebirth as a new lobby space conceived for the next generation.
The Elegance Collection SBGM221, restoring the classical form of days gone by, is a timepiece likewise rich in the modern aesthetics for which Grand Seiko is renowned. The design, reflecting images of Japanese beauty and traditional craftsmanship, brings to mind the modern and harmonious mood of the Okura Tokyo. In this sense, it draws from the spirit of challenge, which Japanese craftsmen have continually devoted to their creative endeavors.
Text by Taka Kawachi
