A sad Sayonara for the Hotel Okura

Much has been written about the upcoming demolition of Tokyo's landmark Hotel Okura's main building ever since it was announced in May last year. Widely met with incomprehension that a hotel generally described as a "modernist masterpiece" would be so cruelly dispensed with, it even prompted a "Save the Okura" online petition by Monocle's Tyler Brulé. Sadly, all outcries were ignored by the owners who are pushing ahead to make way for a 38-storey mixed use development which will include a 550-key hotel, re-imagined for our times and in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

I was fortunate to have stayed at the Okura many times over the years, and again last week, which gave me the opportunity to reminisce and for one more time enjoy the totally unique atmosphere of this soon to disappear landmark.

More images of the Hotel Okura below.

While it is true that it is a specifically Asian trait to prefer new over old, you have to wonder why so many other major cities have managed to hold on to their landmark buildings, many of them hotels. Hong Kong's Peninsula, Singapore's Raffles, New York's Waldorf Astoria, Paris' Ritz  Hotel, to name but a few, have not only been refurbished over the years, but in many instances meticulously renovated to evoke the age these buildings were initially erected. A recent example that comes to mind is Fairmont's restoration of Shanghai's famous Peace Hotel to its former glory, preserving many elements of its historical 1920's and 1930s past.

So why not the Okura? Isn't it enough that it was the first 'international' hotel in Tokyo, that it played host to an impossibly long list of celebrities from all walks of life and - most importantly - that its architectural vision, inside and out, exemplifies mid 20th century modernist architecture in an accessible way? Well, apparently not.

But perhaps looking at the point in time when it was built provides a clue here. All the aforementioned hotels were built in the late 19th or early 20th century in that opulent, colonial style that we now associate with 'grand' and 'old world'. That there has not been another style that has similarly taken our imagination since is profoundly sad. The Peace Hotel symbolises a point in time in the past, the glories of the colonial empire long lost, but now brought back to glory in capitunist China, no less. 

Why the Hotel Okura should not be awarded the same respect is incomprehensible to me. Is the workmanship really that shoddy that it cannot be renovated? Tokyo, after all, is deepest earthquake territory which would have, even in the early 1960s, ensured quality workmanship (not to mention that we are talking about Japan here, the one place where workmanship to this day is taken extremely seriously). While the guest rooms have been renovated rather uninspiringly over the years, judging from how meticulously the interior of the lobby area has been designed and preserved, this hotel was built with longevity in mind. 

But perhaps people at large simply aren't that much into modernist architecture, Mad Men not withstanding. Nice to look at, but for my money please give me something else.

With the main building confirmed to be closing for the last time on 1 August, I guess it is futile to go on about it. The less spectacular South Wing of the building, which was added in 1973 and will be spared the wrecking ball (for now), is due for a quick spruce up from 1 July until 1 August and will serve as the hold out hotel until the new tower is finished in 2019, so you can still get a little whiff of the Okura magic until then. And if you can't make it, take a tour of the hotel below.