Press Release 10/05/26
Kyoto Crafts meets HOSHINOYA Design
The Creators of the HOSHINOYA Kyoto Through long centuries, the crafts persons of Kyoto
have refined their skills to the level of the sublime.
The quality that is uniquely ‘HOSHINOYA Kyoto’
comes from design that fuses this craft with the
comforts demanded by modern times. From a
redefinition of traditional Japanese room style to
architecture, landscaping and decoration, this
philosophy is manifested throughout. The result is an
authentic Japanese experience presented with all the
comforts of the present day.
Rie AZUMA×HOSHINOYA
Hiroki HASEGAWA×HOSHINOYA
Architectual Design
Landscape Design Breathing new life into traditional architecture In Kyoto’s Arashiyama district, we were given the
challenge of how to breathe new life into a traditional
building with many years of history behind it. Our task
was not to simply restore an old building; we wanted to
propose a new approach, ‘Authentic Japan’, following in
the steps of HOSHINOYA Karuizawa. In Kyoto are
preserved the techniques of craftsmen with whom
modern life rarely brings us into contact: the crafts of
Kyoto-style woodblock-printed paper, lattices, plastering,
roof tile, and a specialized knowledge of hard-to-find
types of wood. It is a place that, enviably, preserves
traditional crafts in its daily life. It is also an area that I
believe, along with its antiquity, has an element of the
avant-garde as well. We have conceived of this project,
with the lightness inherent in Japanese wood
architecture and the arrangement of guest rooms into
individual units, as giving rise to a sense of being
created by history. And at the same time offering a
‘HOSHINOYA’ lifestyle and relaxing comfort, and we
invite you to enjoy this space offered you by the history
of Kyoto and the new life breathed into it by our creative
team.
Japan is one of the few countries, especially today, in
which gardens form a major part of traditional culture,
and it is because of the weight of that tradition that I felt
it would be possible to try something new in the way of
landscape design. I felt it has always been
characteristic of Japan that within the classic culture
we have received, there has always been both a
movement to further refine it operating in collision with
one wishing to break it down and create new forms.
While we are outsiders in Kyoto, we have taken
inspiration from this thousand year-old city and,
presumptuous as it may sound, we feel the result is a
creative addition to its culture. In real terms, we have
with HOSHINOYA Kyoto given form to this feeling of
experimentation by designing the gardenttes with the
collaboration of both metal crafts-persons in Tokyo and
Kyoto gardeners, and while the paving stones at the
entrance may look classical, we have chosen for them
materials that are not often utilized this way.
President
Azuma Architect & Associates President
Studio on site LTD. co Atelier Maruni ×HOSHINOYA
Kyoto Style Woodblock Printed Paper
Takeo Honjo is one of very few craftsmen working with the Kyoto-style woodblockprinted paper used on sliding doors, and he has created paper for such important
buildings as the Detached Palace and the Nijo Castle. He is the only craftsman
now carrying on the techniques of Kyoto-style ‘crinkled paper’. Blending such
pigments as crushed white oyster-shell powder, red iron oxide, ultramarine, yellow
ochre, India ink, and mica on a 130 year-old woodblock, he gently presses
Japanese washi paper onto it. Each 3-by-6 foot sheet of paper is pressed with 12
separate color arrangements, twice for each, giving a total of 24 impressions for
each completed sheet. This paper, which at a glance looks quite simple, is printed
to an amazing degree of exquisiteness, and is used on the bed boards and sliding
doors of our guest rooms. Enjoy the profound changes in effect that lamplight
brings to these traditional patterns refined over long years, their traditional
Japanese esthetic engendering variations and textures only possible when
created by hand.
Hinoki Kogei ×HOSHINOYA
Furnitures
The artisans of Hinoki Kogei are Japan’s foremost makers of furniture. The
contents of a traditional Japanese room are made to appear at their most
beautiful at the eye level of a viewer kneeling formally. Chuzo Tozawa and his
son Tadakatsu, respectively Chairman and President, have kept the Japanese
esthetic of interior design firmly in mind in providing a comfortable piece of
furniture on which to relax, their ‘tatami sofa’. These utilize lignitized Japanese
cedar and pine, buried for many years in the earth to give it distinctive
characteristics, while the backrests, reminiscent in design of the famous Sagano
bamboo grove nearby, feature supports which function individually to gently
support the body by adapting to the curve of the back. This ‘rediscovery of the
Japanese room’ also manifests itself in the tea chests, beds, tables, and other
furniture in the lounge and elsewhere. by hand.
Nishaya ×HOSHINOYA
Arai, Polishment
The trade of painter is an important one for the many historic buildings that
remain in Kyoto. These are the people who flawlessly bring back to life for future
generations important old buildings made with ancient skills and materials that
cannot be reproduced today. The application of a ‘Arai, Polishment’ is very
important to our century-old ‘tea-house’-style building. Things like eaves,
cabinets, or the frames of sliding doors are steam-cleaned, and preservative
carefully brushed on and wiped away on a regular basis. This seems like a
rather thankless job, but those sections that appear to be fading away with age
are thus restored to their original luster, and beautifully brought back to life. The
work of Nishaya and his crew in conveying the past safely into the future is
evident all through HOSHINOYA Kyoto. Miura Shomei ×HOSHINOYA Lighting
It is in lighting that we have realized in the most concrete terms our
HOSHINOYA project of bringing new life to old traditions by having the artisans
of Kyoto create on the basis of our designs. It is important in the traditional
Japanese esthetic that things like Kyoto-style woodblock-printed paper or
lacquer-ware take on their greatest luster in subtle lamplight. Lighting in a
Japanese room plays a vital supporting role in delivering an amazing feeling of
warmth and security, along with the pleasure of a shadowy world lost in the
bright fluorescent illumination amid which we live today. The long-established Miura Shomei Co. provides lighting that conjures up the
traditional beauty of the Japanese room. The craftsman Einosuke Tazuke has
for many years had a keen eye for the use of a soldering iron and the bend in
sheet metal in the making of brass-frame lamps. These lighting fixtures are
created by superb artisans and placed so as to subtly illuminate the rooms of
the HOSHINOYA with settled warmth. Ueya Kato Zoen×HOSHINOYA
Gardener
HOSHINOYA Kyoto features two Japanese gardens: the waterfall-and-pond
‘Water Garden’ and the ‘Hidden Garden’, incorporating oxidized tile. Following
in the footsteps of Japanese gardening traditions, they have been designed to
inspire the HOSHINOYA sense of modernity in coexistence with the grandeur
of their setting in the Arashiyama gorge. Their actual creation is due to the
long-nurtured expertise of Ueya Kato Zoen, established in 1848 and the builder
of gardens for many cultural foundations. Implicit everywhere in these gardens
is the playful spirit of their landscapers, whose long experience in Japanese
tradition and esthetics incorporates a new point of view shared with
HOSHINOYA. Exit Metal Work Supply × HOSHINOYA
Metalwork
Covering the ground in the Tsuki Maisonette private garden
is an iron plate designed in a chrysanthemum pattern; this is
a new style of gardenette using metalwork to carry on the
esthetic and spirit of earlier times that found beauty in
evidence of the temporal nature of all around us. It is the
work of Exit Metal Work Supply, whose craftsmen create
furniture and utensils of metal. Kaoru Shimizu, its president,
worked with the design firm IDEE Co., Ltd. before starting his
own company. The chrysanthemum pattern was created on
melted iron with welding equipment; the iron was then
allowed to oxidize naturally to an esthetically pleasing
degree, at which point rust preventer was applied. Viewed
from the ground floor, it is a traditional Japanese gardenette,
complete with ‘tea-house’ style tsukubai, water basin. With
the bird’s-eye view from the 2nd floor, however, the overall
pattern takes shape. Experience this new approach to the
Japanese garden.