Keno Kuma sits on one of the many green hills of Nagasaki and a new vision of luxury appears. A modernist paradise, at once uplifting and hospitable; a cubist vision, integrating the serene simplicity of Japanese design with his own philosophy of mingling light, wood and water in an attempt to “erase architecture altogether”. His courage is what sets him apart from his predecessors. With eyes of green gleam, he sketches something on a piece of paper.
Soon Garden Terrace Nagasaki is a reality. A facade of cedar panels, he has moulded it with a feverish passion, a fusion of natural materials and ancient Japanese craftsmanship, with a modern edge few have been able to imitate. The mathematical lines and geometric shapes seem to float in air, unmoored above a strident play of light and shadow.
All is well, for the hotel’s clients have come here to relax and rejuvenate. They note the lightning ripples of water, reflected in glass; lines of ether woven into the wood panelling above, and that solitary star, framed inside the unique cut-out windows. They lounge on chairs shimmering with liquid gold, and smile at those spots where the maple-panneled floor is punctuated with rectangles of grass.
The curtains hang from sinuous, organic forms from another cosmos, and are an ode to the post modernist doctrine of form before function. They sense that Kuma’s world is just the place for work-weary sometime dreamers. And Kuma agrees: ambiance is precious here, as is redefining Japan’s historic attitude towards hospitality. His aurora reinvents the ultra-traditional ryokan, a Japanese inn that still maintains some of the highest standards of service in the tourism industry, still utilising modern technologies to act as a “mediator between man and nature”.
Drawing momentum from the critically-acclaimed The Opposite House in Beijing and Z58 – a phenomenal glass structure set in the heart of Shanghai’s French Quarter – the Garden Terrace is an impressionist masterpiece you have to first feel, then imagine, then believe.
