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Shinkamanza Machiya Resort Named “Village Kiramachi”; New Photos from Our Stay

September 6, 2017 By Michael Lambe

A few months ago I wrote about an innovative machiya townhouse revival project in the Shinkamanza district of central Kyoto. Under the supervision of local architectural company, Good Design Works, not just one traditional townhouse but a whole group of houses has been renovated and reinvented as a single integrated resort hotel. I have now been informed that the resort has received a new official name: 宿きらまち (yado kiramachi) in Japanese, or “Village Kiramachi” in English. This new name partly reflects the close communal atmosphere that Good Design Works have strived to create in this project, and also honors the name of the chief designer Moatesu Kiraeri.

Mewby in the Village Kiramachi machiya resort.

Mewby and I were recently invited back to the Village Kiramachi resort to see how much the construction work has progressed and also to spend a night in these beautiful surroundings. The resort will not be opened to guests until later this year, so we were very fortunate to be able to have a preview of the facilities. Here are some images from our stay.

A village view. At the center of the resort is a small community shrine.
Each machiya building has been lovingly restored with respect to its individual character – no two buildings are exactly alike.
Every window offers a different view.
A small stream runs throughout the resort offering natural background music.
Two lanes lead into the resort from the street outside. One is original…
…And one was newly created to add more air and light. Can you tell which is which?
Everywhere you see tremendous attention to detail, from the traditional latticework on the windows…
…to specially selected momiji maple patterned ceiling paper….
…or in this room the simple beauty of a wooden ceiling.
In this house guests can enjoy moon viewing in all seasons.
A traditional tea room is also available for the guests’ enjoyment.
This house has a traditional hinoki wood bath.
And in this house you can enjoy a view of the inner garden while taking a shower.
Imagine going to sleep with this as your view…
…And waking up to this!

Many thanks to Good Design Works for letting us stay at Village Kiramachi and for permission to take these photographs. For more information about this beautiful new resort and to view the design plans, see my original article: Shinkamanza: An Innovative Machiya Townhouse Resort in Downtown Kyoto. Village Kiramachi will open to guests later this year.

For further details, current room rates, and bookings check the Village Kiramachi booking page.

Full text and original photographs by Michael Lambe – All rights reserved.

Shinkamanza: An Innovative Machiya Townhouse Resort in Downtown Kyoto

May 16, 2017 By Michael Lambe

Last year I was invited to view the ongoing work on an exciting machiya revival project in central Kyoto. Overseen by a local architectural company called Good Design Works the plan is to renovate not just one traditional townhouse but an entire unit of houses as a single integrated resort hotel.

Machiya are the traditional wooden townhouses of Kyoto. Their dark lattice fronts once lined all the streets of the city, and their low-lying tiled rooftops formed a gentle rolling city skyline with here and there a palace or a temple rising up above them. Though the palaces and temples remain, that distinctive machiya skyline has now all but disappeared. Over the last 60 years or so, machiya have increasingly been torn down in favor of high rise blocks and parking lots. Though this destruction of old Kyoto continues today, there have been some efforts in recent years to find new ways to preserve these buildings. Famed Japanologist Alex Kerr was a pioneer when he founded the Iori company to renovate old houses for use as hotel lodgings. Other businesses have transformed machiya into attractive modern cafes, restaurants, and shops, and both the city and local banks offer attractive investments for new home-owners who wish to buy, restore, and refurbish these buildings.

This all represents something of a boom in machiya revival, but up until now most projects have focused on single buildings. Where Good Design Works are showing a new and rather daring approach is in seeking to redevelop an entire connected group of houses. This is actually really important. Traditionally, machiya were (and some still are) grouped together in small neighborhoods, and everybody in that neighborhood knew each other. Typically a narrow lane would run off the main road and around it there would be a close knit community of houses, with many neighbors employed in the same kind of work. People would see each other daily, meet up for gossip at the local public baths, and watch over each other’s kids when they played outside in communal areas. Restoring a single machiya is always a worthwhile enterprise, but on its own it does nothing to preserve this old communal spirit and there really is nothing quite as sad as the sight of an old townhouse hemmed in on all sides by looming apartment buildings.

This is why it is so wonderful that Good Design Works have taken a block of buildings in Kyoto’s Shinkamanza-cho district and renovated them as a group. The new resort is named “Shinkamanza” after this district, and it is an ambitious project, but having viewed the construction site I am happy to say it looks splendid. The resort sits in a well-preserved area on a quiet side street not far from the Shijo-Karasuma intersection, and despite its central location it forms a natural sanctuary from the busy urban surround. Within the resort are 9 houses containing separate apartments. Each house has its own individual design, its own facilities, and its own inner courtyard garden. All of these houses offer unique views on the rest of the resort complex that provide a nostalgic glimpse of old Kyoto. The resort has been conceived as a small village, and to bind this village together there is a communal garden with carefully chosen rocks, a small café bar area where guests can mingle, a traditional public bath for group or family bathing, and a flowing stream that provides both cool air and natural background music to calm the soul.

And the houses are comfortable! These houses have been fully refurbished, so that they will be warm and snug in winter, and cool and breezy in the hot summer months. I was also highly impressed by the attention given to each house’s bathing and toilet facilities. The chief designer, Moatesu Kiraeri, spent a lot of time explaining to me how important he felt these areas are. Machiya houses are generally not that big, and traditionally they didn’t have their own bathrooms, so modern refits tend to skimp on the space and materials used for these modern conveniences. Not so at Shinkamanza! Here you will find not a cramped plastic toilet, but an elegant room with a ceramic bowl, a spacious hinoki wood bath tub, or a piping hot shower, and in each area you can enjoy piped music, or a cleverly angled view of your inner garden (with your privacy preserved intact). As Kiraeri-san enthused on these areas I could see that he conceived of the toilet and bathing areas not simply as facilities, but as comfortable spaces for quiet contemplation. I was instantly reminded of Junichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows where he waxes lyrically upon the Japanese toilet as a “place of spiritual repose”:

“No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden… surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks upon blue skies and green leaves.”

Furthermore, I was assured that each building is fully soundproofed, so you can play your music at top volume, and they won’t hear a thing next door.

Overall I was really excited by this project, both for its overall vision, and for the attention to detail in choosing the perfect materials: just the right paper for the ceilings, the very best cedar wood for the baths, and not this rock but another for the garden display… Clearly no expense or effort has been spared on this project and quite rightly it has been given full backing by the city government too. Shinkamanza looks to be not only a great place to stay when visiting Kyoto, but a brand new model for machiya revival projects elsewhere. Three cheers for Good Design Works and may others be inspired to follow their example!

The first floor design plan.
The Second floor design plan.

The Shinkamanza machiya resort will be officially opened in July late 2017. All images from the Shinkamanza resort were taken by Elsa Arribas (aka BunnyTokyo). For more information visit the official Shinkamanza Facebook page or follow the project on Twitter.

Update September 6th 2017: The Shinkamanza machiya resort has now been renamed Village Kiramachi. For more information and pictures see my latest article: Shinkamanza Machiya Resort Named “Village Kiramachi”; New Photos from Our Stay

Update September 13th 2017: The Shinkamanza machiya resort is now taking bookings. For further details and room rates check the Village Kiramachi booking page.

A Trip into the Past at Meiji Mura

November 20, 2013 By Michael Lambe

IMG_6860 (Medium)In 2011 McKinsey & Company commisioned 80 writers and thinkers to contribute to an anthology rather grandly titled Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future that Works. I bought my own copy after browsing through it at Kansai Aiport and reading Alex Kerr‘s piece “Japan after People”.  His contribution was a wry form of dystopian projection that took various current trends, both national and local, and followed them into the far future to entirely logical yet completely absurd conclusions. His prediction for Kyoto in 2060 amused me greatly: [Read more…]

Two Views from Yasaka Shrine…

June 3, 2011 By Michael Lambe

…separated by time. Both images give us a “bronze lion’s eye view” down Shijo as seen from the entrance to Yasaka Shrine. The first is a recent image painted by my hopelessly romantic friend Ichsan. Do please visit his website to see more of his wonderful paintings. This is the image of Gion with which we are familiar today.

This water colour sketch “City Guardian” is by the artist M Ichsan Harja Nugraha. Click to visit his website.

And now here is the same view, as it was over a hundred years ago:

Click to view more photographs of 19th century Japan.

Incredible how much it has changed, isn’t it? The man wasn’t kidding when he said “the past is a foreign country”. If we could transport citizens of 19th century Kyoto to the present day and show them what we’ve done to this city, how do you think they would react? Would they see progress or would they weep? In turn, what would it have been like to live in this city then? Can you imagine the sound of the streets without motorized traffic? Can you imagine being able to see the mountains all around you from the very center of the city? Can you imagine waking up in the morning, walking out onto those streets and greeting the people there? If you are familiar with 21st century Kyoto, doesn’t this picture haunt you? Only a few key buildings from that time remain today, and all the rest has changed utterly… How will this scene look in another hundred years?

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