Imperial Hotel, Tokyo

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Imperial Hotel “Wright House”
Imperial Hotel “Wright House”

Tokyo's Imperial Hotel was the best-known of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings in Japan. The original Imperial Hotel in Tokyo was built in 1890. To replace the original wooden structure, the owners commissioned a design by Wright, which was completed in 1923. Time took its toll, and in 1976, the facade and pool were moved to The Museum Meiji Mura, a collection of buildings (mostly from the Meiji Era) in Inuyama, near Nagoya, while the rest of the structure was demolished to make way for a new hotel on the site.

The Frank Lloyd Wright version was designed in the "Maya Revival Style" of architecture. It incorporates a tall, pyramid-like structure, and also loosely copies Maya motifs in its decorations. The main building materials are poured concrete and concrete block.

While the Imperial Hotel was originally owned and partly funded by the imperial family, the current owner of Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, the new hotel on the grounds on which Wright's Imperial Hotel once stood, is Imperial Hotel, Ltd., which runs a chain of luxury hotels in Japan.

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[edit] 1923 earthquake

The structure completed in 1923 survived the magnitude 7.9 Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. A telegram from Baron Kihachiro Okura reported the following:

Hotel stands undamaged as monument to your genius[.] Congratulations[.][1]

Wright's passing the telegram to journalists has helped perpetuate a legend that the hotel was unaffected by the earthquake. In reality, the building had damage; the central section slumped, several floors bulged,[1] and four pieces of stonework fell to the ground.[2] The building's main failing was its foundation. Wright had intended the hotel to float on the site's alluvial mud "as a battleship floats on water."[1] This was accomplished by making it shallow, with broad footings. This was supposed to allow the building to float during an earthquake. However, the foundation was an inadequate support and did nothing to prevent the building from sinking into the mud to such an extent that it had to be demolished decades later.[1] Furthermore, alluvial mud, such as that at the hotel's site, has the nasty effect of amplifying seismic waves.[3]

The hotel had several design features that made up for its foundation:

  • The reflecting pool (visible in the picture above) also provided a source of water for fire-fighting, saving the building from the post-earthquake firestorm;[1]
  • Cantilevered floors and balconies provided extra support for the floors;
  • A copper roof, which cannot fall on people below the way a tile roof can;
  • Seismic separation joints, located about every 20 m along the building;
  • Tapered walls, thicker on lower floors, increasing their strength; and
  • Suspended piping and wiring, instead of being encased in concrete, as well as smooth curves, making them more resistant to fracture.[2]

Most important, the hotel passed the most crucial test for any structure during an earthquake: it stayed standing.

[edit] The Imperial Hotel

Final perspective drawing by Wright

Full view from Hibiya Park

Connecting corridor (Lobby)

Connecting corridor (Lobby)

Entrance

Entrance Hall

inside Lobby

Terrace

Guest room

Peacock Room

Peacock Room

Peacock Room

Peacock Room (1935)

Theater

Shortly after the 1923 earthquake (on the right burning is the Kangyō Bank)

Shortly after the earthquake (the Imperial is seen in the top right)

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Bryce Walker (1982). Earthquake, Planet Earth. Time Life Books, 153. ISBN 0-8094-4300-7. 
  2. ^ a b Bryce Walker (1982). Earthquake, Planet Earth. Time Life Books, 154. ISBN 0-8094-4300-7. 
  3. ^ Robert W. Christopherson (1992). Geosystems - An Introduction to Physical Geography. MacMillan, 347. ISBN 0-02-322443-6. 

[edit] External links

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