9 best art hotels in Japan

Tucked away in Kyushu’s sacred Mifuneyama mountain is the Mifuneyama Rakuen Hotel. The Japanese inn has always been a popular destination for those looking for a secluded onsen getaway, but the more recent addition of a digital art installation by teamLab provides even more reason for art lovers to go to Kyushu. 

Established in 1966, the hotel mostly features traditional-style guest rooms with tatami mats and Edo-period (1603-1868) artworks. In the hotel lobby is the teamLab installation titled Forest of Resonating Lamps. While the colourful LED lamps are a modern contrast to the traditional rooms, the art installation serves the same purpose as the hotel’s award-winning saunas and hot spring baths – giving guests a chance to reflect while immersed in a soothing, therapeutic place. 

The colours of the lamps change several times a year depending on the season, and range from cherry-blossom pink to a deep autumn-leaf red. To see more works by teamLab, plan a visit between summer and autumn – that’s when teamLab hosts a nighttime exhibition in the surrounding forest each year.

BnA’s newest hotel, set to open in April in Nihonbashi, is one of its most interesting venues yet. The boutique hotel features a mere 14 rooms, each with its own unique theme created by a Tokyo-based artist who’s been given the free reign to do whatever they want. Creativity does run wild here, as you’d discover with quirky  features like a magnet Othello wall, glittering disco balls and even an in-room vending machine. Some suites, like the ‘Framed Function’ room, provide a calming and minimalist effect while others, like the ‘Sushi Wars’ room by Mako Principal, are positively psychedelic. 

As the hotel also features an ‘underground factory’ with an interchanging mural wall, guests – and fun-loving Tokyoites – will always find something new to look forward to on every visit.

Shiroiya Hotel in Maebashi, Gunma can rightly be called a destination hotel. Internationally renowned Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto has transformed an existing boxy building into a stunning hotel that blurs the line between contemporary art museum and accommodation. There is art everywhere – in the lounge, at the reception, along the corridors, etc. The plant-filled four-storey-high atrium is stunning, especially with Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich’s colour-changing Lighting Pipe weaving around the concrete beams.

Behind this Heritage Tower is the newly built Green Tower, which looks like a grassy hillock. On its peak stands artist Tatsuo Miyajima’s meditation room, filled with his signature LED time counters. Every room across both towers features works by a different artist, but you should stay in one of the four special rooms, each designed by a creative: British product designer Jasper Morrison, Italian architect Michele de Lucchi, as well as the abovementioned Sou Fujimoto and Leandro Erlich.

Most people travel to Kyoto to see some of the city’s most ancient shrines, but this Mitsui Garden Hotel in Kyoto actually features a temple within the hotel itself. Jyokyoji Temple has a history of over 500 years, but with no successor in line to inherit and look after the temple, it became part of a redevelopment project where it’s integrated into a luxury hotel opened just last year. 

While most of the hotel and its rooms are beautifully designed in a black and white wabi sabi aesthetic, the ornate Jyokyoji is a gold and gleaming contrast to the surrounding minimalist theme. The temple isn't just there for looking at, however. Guests also have the option of partaking in the traditional early morning rituals of otsutome (morning service), where prayers are performed by a priest over burning incense sticks, before receiving a hand-painted goshuin (Buddhist seal) of the temple to keep as a memento of their visit. 

Five artists were commissioned for the Kawasaki Art Mural Project, an undertaking which involved creating a giant mural across the Kawasaki City Hall as well as in five rooms of the hotel opposite the government building, Hotel En Michi. These rooms were treated as artist residency projects, where each artist stayed at the rooms until their vision was complete. 

Because the hotel itself is inspired by the history and culture of the Edo period (1603-1868), the art in each room is also influenced by traditional Japanese themes and colour palettes. You can book the room by Kensuke Takahashi featuring a blue mural of samurai, sumo wrestlers and calligraphy artists, or the one by Cook, which sports a deep-green calligraphy-style caricature and traditional kanji characters. 

With rooms that double as exhibition spaces and hallways that resemble galleries, Anteroom is more artistic than designer. Conceptual rooms range from Mika Ninagawa’s loud pink sakura room where a motif of cherry blossoms and blue sky sprawls from floor to ceiling, to more subtle spaces like Shun Kimura’s room where the walls are blank but the curtains feature illustrations and phrases with the artist’s handwriting. 

Roughly 90 artworks displayed around the property are available for purchase so you could bring part of the space home with you. This is also perhaps the only place in Japan where you could purchase a paper cup or a broken q-tip for ¥100,000 apiece – both of which are actually artworks by the artist Kenichi Ishiguro.

Gajoen, one of Japan’s most ornate and elaborately decorated hotels, is located in the heart of Tokyo. With lavish restaurants, a Japanese garden featuring a koi-filled pond and frequent exhibitions, it's not uncommon for Hotel Gajoen to be visited by Tokyo art lovers who don’t plan to stay the night. Ever since its completion in 1931, when Tokyo was recovering from a devastating earthquake, the hotel has been both a beacon of hope and a byword for opulence. 

With so many pieces of 20th century Japanese art on display, it can be a challenge to take it all in at once, so it’s lucky the hotel offers staying guests free guided tours, allowing you to see the most treasured pieces and learn about them in depth.

Located in the Shiodome area and overlooking the Tokyo Tower, Park Hotel features an breathtaking nighttime view of the Tokyo skyline. Beyond the city view, however, the hotel has its own fair share of worthwhile sights including a series of murals incorporated into the rooms.

These rooms are part of an ongoing project started in 2012 titled ‘Artist in Hotel’, where local artists combine Japanese aesthetics with their own artistic visions to create unique guest rooms. The hotel has an entire floor dedicated to 31 of these artists’ rooms.

BnA’s first big project in Tokyo was established in the neighbourhood of Koenji back in 2016. Though it caters to a hip and young community of travellers needing a place to stay, the ‘Bed and Art’ facility also hosts frequent art and music events for the cool kids to drop in over the weekends. The hotel’s reception doubles as a DJ booth while the basement is actually a tiny gallery where artists, and even bands, come to showcase their work.