A Complete Overview of "THE TOWER HOTEL NAGOYA" - The Symbol of Nagoya, the TV Tower, has been Reborn as a Hotel that Transmits Culture and Art!

Nagoya's symbol "TV Tower" opened in 1954 as the first radio tower in Japan. On October 1, 2020, it was reborn as "THE TOWER HOTEL NAGOYA" over the course of three years.

The concept is "to transmit tradition and art." There are a total of 15 guest rooms on the 4th and 5th floors. The hotel is a small luxury hotel, filled with arts and crafts from the three Tokai prefectures, view of RAYARD Hisaya-Odori Park and a restaurant that is known for its locally produced gastronomy.

The entire hotel consists of 4 floors!

On the 1st floor, there is an open-air terrace cafe "Farm&" where you can experience the creation of liveliness. Regional Cuisine Restaurant & Banquet "lily" on the 2nd floor. The music hall "Sign" can also be used for wedding ceremonies.

The 4th floor is the 13 guest rooms of "THE TOWER HOTEL NAGOYA" and the restaurant "glycine". On the 5th floor, there are two suites with terraces overlooking the bark view and a fitness gym exclusively for guests.

The entire hotel is composed of four floors, created through collaboration between local industry and traditional crafts and local artists and designers. Workshops and exhibitions are organized to allow guests to experience and appreciate crafts and art.  

Gallery-like lobby and gallery room

Let's start with the 4th floor.

When you go up to the 4th floor by elevator, the space like an art gallery spreads out. While preserving the tradition of the TV tower, the modern atmosphere based on black is irresistible.

The mosaic at the front of the hotel was created by Hiroshi Sugito, an artist from Aichi Prefecture. In the 1950s, when the TV tower was built, many mosaic murals were created in Nagoya City. It is a work that combines the current scenery seen from the TV tower and the scenery that has already disappeared.

If you look closely at the pillars in the lobby, they are exposed. By showing the pillars as they were at the time of opening, you can feel the long history of the TV tower.

The lobby is decorated with objects inspired by the TV tower and works by local artists.

On the walls of the smoking room are letters written by the artist in pencil.

Upon entering, you will find three more art pieces on display here. We were curious about the round window at the back of the room
When you get closer....

The works of Tomoyuki Washio, a painter based in Nagoya, were playing as a video!

The sign of the restroom is also a shachihoko, just like in Nagoya. In fact, the south side of the Nagoya Castle tower is female and the north side is male.

When you go inside, the "Layered Hisaya Odori Park" spreads out in front of you. The feeling of openness made us excited.

The hotel has a gallery room. It is said that the program will be changed periodically and sent out. We are looking forward to future exhibitions!

Thorough report on all rooms!

From here, we will report on all the guest rooms that you are interested in. The 13 rooms on the 4th floor were designed by artists associated with the three Tokai prefectures, and the two rooms on the 5th floor are top-of-the-line suites that make use of traditional craftsmanship.

LO2｜Asuka Miyata

LO2 is a guest room designed by knit textile artist Asuka Miyata. The work on display in this exhibition is the "con/text/image" series. Photographs of exhibition captions, which were taken as memos, were processed and converted into knitted works of art by loading the digital data into a modified home electronic knitting machine. The work is based on the theme of change and interrelationship of information.

The large works on the window frames were created using threads that were sitting in a textile factory in Ichinomiya or that would otherwise have been thrown away. The message of the TV tower's rebirth is also contained in the work.

LO3｜Shin Morikita

Shin Morikita was born in Aichi Prefecture and is based in Gifu Prefecture. He has created many paintings and sculptures with motifs of people and houses. In this guest room, the theme of "people" is depicted in the poetic blank space on the wall, with figures standing still.

The sculpture in the lobby with the motif of the TV tower is also his work.

LO4・LO7| Tomoyuki Washio

The works in the two rooms, LO4 and LO7, were designed by Tomoyuki Washio, a leading Nagoya artist. In LO4, a dynamic painting depicts a large female body as if it were a mountain. The motif of this work was inspired by his childhood memory of looking at the mountains from the window of his parents' house and wondering what was beyond the mountains. This work gives the viewer a sense of time flowing slowly.

At LO7, the atmosphere is different from that of the previous wall painting, and a calm painting is gently displayed. The painting shows a time when a miracle happens for only a few minutes a day.  

It is as if it were hoped that such a miraculous moment will happen in this guest room.

LO5・LO9｜Masao Shirasawa

Designed by Nagoya-based graphic designer Masao Shirasawa, LO5 features a typographic representation of Charles Chaplin's words. Framed works are printed by lithograph (printer Hiroshi Katayama).

The textile works are a collaboration with Akira Adachi, a textile planner from Bishu who also produces fabrics for top brands. He draws letters by pruning into the overlapping fabrics.

In LO9, the motifs of Mr. Shirasawa's two sons are used. The first son, "ATAMADEKKACHI NA IKIMONO," is the type that thinks with his head, and the second son, "ABARENBOU NO IKIMONO," is the type that moves around with his instincts, and they are depicted as two different creatures. He believes that such creatures are still beloved beings.

LO6｜Hiraki Sawa

LO6 has a bedside drawing by London-based visual artist Hiraki Sawa. It is a drawing of the exhibition image for this project. It could be called a prophetic blueprint, and comparing it with the actual exhibition view of the restaurant is one of the ways to enjoy the work.

LO8｜Fumi Imamura

Artist Fumi Imamura, who has been working with flowers and plants as motifs, is exhibiting a lovely patchwork of flowers, "Singing on the Ground," at LO8.

Arranging various sizes, shapes, and colors is like weaving words or making sounds. Each piece is created and arranged one by one with an awareness of its own abstract rhythm.

L10｜Mikiya Takimoto

L10 exhibits works by Mikiya Takimoto, a photographer and filmmaker born in Aichi Prefecture. "SPACE #06" captures the moment when the tip of an orbiter peeks out slightly from the plume. "SPACE #03" is a cutout of an Apollo rocket jet.

It is a huge man-made structure, but it looks like the iris of an animal's eye. When an artificial structure blends in like a natural landscape, new discoveries are made. You can experience such moments in this room.

L11｜Yusuke Inaguma

Inaguma Furniture & Cabinetry is a custom-made furniture factory located in Minami Ward, Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture. The factory is dedicated to harmonizing the texture and form of materials, and each piece of furniture is carefully crafted by hand using domestic solid oak, maple, and walnut wood.

Mr. Inaguma's work is "SAKUBO," meaning the phases of the moon from the new moon to the full moon. It is a work that includes the meaning of the shape of the moon as it was born and formed into its present form.

The shape of a tree as it waxes and wanes naturally is the same as that of the moon. In order to convey this natural beauty directly without destroying it, the artist has made only slight modifications.

In addition, the bedside shades and lamps were also made by Mr. Inaguma. The space has the warmth of wood.

Life Designs

2018.06.14

Furniture made of domestic wood that pursues the harmony of the texture and shape of the material. Inaguma Furniture & Cabinetry

https://life-designs.jp/webmagazine/inakagu

名古屋の中心から少し離れた、笠寺の鉄工所跡地にある「稲熊家具製作所」。オリジナル家具を中心に個人住宅や店舗什器、オーダーメイド家具まで幅広く展開。国産材の無垢材を用いて素材の持つ質感と形の調和を追求し、一つひとつの家具を手仕事によって丁寧に作り上げています。今回は、家具の製作から販売まで一人で手がけられている、家具職人の稲熊祐典さんにお話を伺ってきました。木工との出会い稲熊家具製作所の稲熊祐典さん稲熊さん：「木工に興味を持ったのは、名古屋学芸大学時代です。卒業後は、高山の木工芸術スクールに通...

L12|Hiroko Watanabe

Hiroko Watanabe is a calligrapher living in Nagoya, Japan. Her wide-ranging activities include not only expressing calligraphy as an art form with a focus on single-character calligraphy, but also commercial calligraphy for Kinshachi Alleyand other events, three-dimensional calligraphy performances at JapanFES in Boston and Paris, and writing castle seals for Gujo Hachiman Castle and Nishio Castle. In L12, two of her works, "Kaze" and four serial works of "Kacho Fuei" are on display.

Kaze was inspired by the stone monument at the foot of the TV tower, "Shofu Hassyou no Chi" (The Birthplace of Shofu). "Kacho Fuei" is a work that confronts the strength of the trees and flowers, which she felt when looking down below from this room, with the way humanity will live in the future, as if they naturally control something that the city has.

L13｜Hiroshi Sugito

The last guest room on the fourth floor features a work by Aichi Prefecture-born artist Hiroshi Sugito, framed in an antique frame that was used when the TV tower was built to create a 1950s atmosphere.　The motif of the painting is the "Fountain of Hope," a fountain in Central Park. A fruit basket is depicted as a welcoming gesture.