Maebashi, Gunma, Japan

 What Sou Fujimoto and his client Hitoshi Tanaka, president and founder of Jins Eyewear had in mind was not simply the renovation of a hotel but also the renewal of Maebashi itself. 

Once a thriving center of silk production known for its lush greenery, pristine waterways, and modernist poetry, the midsize city was now a textbook example of urban decline. 

The Shiroiya seemed fated to join the ranks of shuttered businesses until a public outcry prompted Tanaka to intervene. 

The architect and client wanted the hotel to function as a kind of public living room where culturally minded locals and visitors could meet, fueling further urban renewal—a goal the city government was also pursuing.

Collaboration was integral to the project. “Creating space for diversity is my style,” Fujimoto says.

For six years, he met monthly with Tanaka and a host of other participants, fluidly integrating their ideas into his plan. 

To realise Tanaka’s vision of creating a “living room for the city”, Fujimoto enlivened the facade with a typographic artwork by American artist Lawrence Weiner and chose to entirely gut the interior to create an impactful space. 

Next, Sou Fujimoto started the renovation of the old hotel by taking down the floors and exposing the rough concrete surface, where his staircases interact with Leandro Erlich’s “Lighting Pipes,”’ which reminds the trace of water pipes running through the old edifice in the past. 

A new large atrium is crisscrossed by concrete beams and filled with natural light pouring in through skylights inserted into the roof.

Plants and furniture create a piazza-like feel in the communal ground-floor spaces, while full-height curtains and staircases draw the eye upwards through the various levels.

This part is referred to as ‘Heritage Tower’ with the respect to the site where a history of more than 300 years of hotel business continued in the past.

An open passageway that contains the hotel’s main entrance also leads through to an extension to the Heritage Tower on a plot that was previously a terrace over a tributary of the Tone River.

Fujimoto also designed a new building called ‘ Green Tower’ with the image of the hillock, typical scenery of the region by the Tone River. 

The Green Tower is traversed by brick stairs that also provide access to small cabins containing a Finnish sauna and the Tatsuo Miyajima installation.

Guest rooms embedded within the hill feature balconies that are cut into the slope and allow the occupants to feel immersed in the surrounding greenery.

The green slopes also reference the concept of “mebuku”, or “sprouting”, which was developed by Tanaka and Maebashi City to describe their vision for the city’s ongoing redevelopment.

Inside, included “special” guest rooms, each a unique installation by one of four international talents: British designer Jasper Morrison lined his entirely in meranti paneling, so, as he puts it, “the room becomes a kind of packing case like the ones made to transport art”; veteran Italian architect Michele de Lucchi covered the walls and ceiling of his room with 2,725 dark-stained pine shingles that, he notes, “make rigid surfaces seem soft”; Erlich used a labyrinth of bronze pipes to recreate a smaller version of his atrium installation; and, along with designing the 21 other guest rooms, Fujimoto created a calm, monochromatic environment in which the furniture appears to be sprouting green leaves.

Visitors are welcomed by the artwork of Lawrence Weiner and Hiroshi Sugimoto when entering the premises. 

As if visiting a museum, each guest room exhibits unique artwork of the local and internationally acclaimed artists such as Tatsuo Miyajima and Ryan Gander.

Project: Shiroiya Hotel
Architects: Sou Fujimoto
Client: Hitoshi Tanaka
Photographers: Shinya Kigure and Katsumasa Tanaka