On the Kamo River of Kyoto, a city renowned for its traditional wooden houses and temples, sits a neglected concrete building. Though now looking a little forlorn, when it opened 40 years ago, this was the glamorous Hotel Fujita Kyoto, a holiday spot much loved by numerous sophisticated visitors, including Shintaro Katsu, the star of the original "Zatoichi" series of films, the renowned architect Kazuo Shinohara, other actors, artists, scientists, writers and more. On Jan. 29 of this year, however, it closed its doors and now awaits its fate, possibly to be torn down to make way for something new.
The architect of Hotel Fujita, Junzo Yoshimura (1908-97), was highly respected — so much so that he was trusted to design part of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and the new wing of Tawaraya Ryokan in Kyoto. He familiarized himself with traditional Japanese wooden architecture (he once personally measured a Kyoto teahouse to understand its proportions) and his work for architect Antonin Raymond both in Japan and in the United States put him at the forefront of modern architecture.
Overlooking the Kamo, Yoshimura's hotel offered guests a fantastic view of the river against the backdrop of the Higashi-yama mountains. Its relatively small size gave it an intimate and cozy atmosphere, and its basement bar had the unexpected view of a manmade waterfall behind the river bank.