Design concept and solution: Kengo Kuma & Associates have adopted simplicity and modernity as guiding principles for the Capitol Hotel Tokyu, a collaboration with Tokyu Architects & Engineers. Channeling Japanese building traditions through modern materials, the architects frequently incorporate the vocabulary of simple wood construction without using wood. They designed the exterior of the steel-frame and reinforced-concrete structure as a delicate granite lattice, attaching the extremely thin granite to an aluminum curtain wall to produce an allover pattern that casts subtly shifting shadows over the course of the day. As the tower narrows, defining the transition from the levels of offices at the base to the hotel floors above, the thin vertical lines of the lattice give way to soft, gridlike pattern. To give the base of the tower a more intimate scale in keeping with its neighbors, the architects interpreted the marquee of the hotel as a kind of shed with a louvered canopy. (The louvers, too, suggest wood, but these "planks" are extruded aluminum overlaid with a cedar pattern.) In the lobby, a structure of the same aluminum planks forms a kind of spare canopy, extending the experience of the shed into the interior.

Completion Date: July 2010

Location: 2-10-3, Nagata-Cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan

Owner: Tokyu Corporation