Conversation with Jun Tomita, Interior Designer of Genji Kyoto

What is the design concept for the hotel?

What you see and sense is a Japanese Wa style, but what you touch and feel is modern comfort.  This is what our contemporary Kyomachiya design tries to achieve.

Something like a meeting of tradition and modern comfort? 

Yes, Kyoto is rooted in history, but it is also constantly renewing itself.  It is where innovation meets tradition, and the beauty is in the details.  We have embedded details in a contemporary design where you'll see Western-style platform beds alongside tatami areas in our guestrooms, Zen gardens throughout the hotel, and original furniture bathed in warm washi lighting.

How do you select furniture for the hotel? 

Except for the tatami chairs by Verner Panton of Denmark, which we chose because they have the ideal height and flexibility for sitting comfortably on a tatami floor, we designed all our furniture and most of the lighting fixtures.  

For the rooms we have original entrance stools, sofas and tables, tatami tables and well-equipped writing desks, all designed for maximum comfort and functionality.  For the lobby we have a sculptural centrepiece table and unique sofa-table sets. 

All pieces were handmade by craftsmen of Kyoto's Futaba Furniture and talented duo Yoshito Dodo and Kotaro Kawanabe from +veve, an innovative craftsmen unit at the forefront of Japan's new wave artisanal movement.   

To achieve the subtle sophistication of Wa design, we worked with our craftsmen to make thinner wood boards with more delicate diagonally curved edges, which resulted in a style that echoes but is yet distinct from the traditional Mingei (folk art) style. 

What kind of design inspiration did you draw from the Tale of Genji?

The Tale of Genji, with its vivid descriptions of court society, architecture and gardens of the Heian period, has been a source of inspiration for Japanese artistic expression over many centuries.  The images and metaphors from the novel have been used as motifs in paintings and screens, art objects, furnishings and costumes.  Genji Kyoto’s rooms are adorned with thematic paintings by young Kyoto artists making use of the motifs and metaphors in the novel.  

For our hotel lobby, which adjoins an Ukifune (drifting boat) garden also inspired by the novel, we created Genji Sofas with swinging seat-backs so that guests can switch from facing the lobby to facing the garden.  

The centrepiece of the lobby is a Tachibana Table (orange blossom) with a shape inspired by the flower motif in one of the Genji chapters.  We also have Ukifune Sofas, which draw on the image of a couple on a drifting boat. 

How do you integrate seasons as a theme in Genji Kyoto?

Nature and the seasons not only filled the poetry and drove festivities in the Tale of Genji, but were also metaphors for the characters and their palace quarters.  Here at the hotel, every room has either a Kamogawa river and Higashiyama view that changes with the seasons, or a view of serene tsubo gardens that had their origins in the shinden palaces in the Tale of Genji.  These small gardens have been integrated into Genji's main rooms and bathrooms, with the connection between outside and inside achieved not only by layout but also through extending garden stone paving into the interior. Having access to nature and the seasons while being indoors has been a perpetual quest of the Japanese people, starting with central gardens of the Heian period through tsubo gardens in machiya townhouses. 

Are you using any special materials?

We choose materials not only for aesthetics, but also for a nice feel.  Comfort for the feet is especially important.  Our guestrooms have a variety of floor materials: linen tiles, cherry wood boards, rush-matted tatami, even stone paving extended from tsubo gardens. The different materials not only contribute to interesting aesthetics, but can delineate areas for taking off shoes or sitting on the floor.  As there is radiant floor heating, the feet can experience different textures while feeling comfortable everywhere!  

What kind of lighting and ambience do you want to create? 

We put great store in designing for the double height lobby.  Its upper windows are clad with semi-translucent and silver-embedded washi paper, allowing for utsuroi, dynamic play of natural and interior light.  Ceiling lamps made of Mino washi paper with traditional patterns are used together with Andon floor lamps to generate Japanese ambience.  Over the bar and reception counter, we made matt, nickel-plated pendant shades with shiny gold interiors to add a touch of brilliance. 

In the rooms, washi light boxes on the ceiling, linear lights under the beds, dimmable reading lamps and Andon floor lamps all help to create atmospheric lighting that induces comfort and serenity.  

Jun Tomita: Interior Design for Genji Kyoto

Jun Tomita is a first class licensed architect in Japan, with bachelor degrees in Studio Art from New York University and Architecture from Tokyo Denki University. He founded Atimont Design ("Atmosphere of Time and Moment") in 1999 and has since generated "design innovations by Wa" in architecture, interior design, products, graphics, photographs and branding. Based in Kyoto, Tomita was a professor who taught product design at Kyoto University of the Arts, and the course "The Zen of Japanese Design: Wa concepts and their creative application" at Stanford University (Kyoto Program). His original design products are showcased in the Aoikuma old folk house in Keihoku, north Kyoto.