Aman Kyoto

Stone paths wind between cedars and maples in Takagamine, a district on the northern edge of Kyoto below the hills that hold the temples of Kinkaku-ji and Daitoku-ji. The paths were laid long before the hotel. Aman Kyoto, which opened in November 2019, was built into a garden that had been waiting for a building for half a century.

History

The land belonged to a collector of textiles and obi, the sashes of the kimono, who bought it in the postwar decades and spent years laying out the garden of mossy stone terraces, walls and paths as the setting for a museum of his collection. The museum was never built, and the garden grew wild. Aman acquired the site in the 2010s and asked Kerry Hill Architects, the Singapore-based practice that had designed Amanemu and Aman Tokyo, to place a hotel within it without disturbing the stonework. Kerry Hill died in August 2018; the hotel, completed by his studio, opened on 1 November 2019 as the group's third hotel in Japan.

Architecture and design

The buildings are low, black-framed pavilions of timber and glass, scattered along the garden so that no path or wall was moved. Hill drew on the machiya townhouses of Kyoto and on the proportions of the tea house: tatami-scale rooms, deep eaves, wooden shutters and a palette of cedar, washi paper and stone. The reception and the Living Pavilion, with its library and lounge, sit at the heart of the garden around a courtyard. Guest pavilions take their names from the trees and plants of the site. The garden itself, with its moss, maples and camellias, was cleared of undergrowth and otherwise left as the collector had made it, and the forest beyond rises into the hills.

Rooms and suites

There are 26 rooms and suites in six pavilions. Every room has a tokonoma alcove, a low platform bed, a deep cypress bathtub, or ofuro, with a view of the garden, and a window seat. The suites add a sitting room and, in the largest, a private garden. The Washigamine Pavilion, the largest, has two bedrooms and its own garden and bath.

Dining

Taka-An is the kaiseki restaurant, serving the multi-course cuisine of Kyoto with vegetables from the farms of the north of the city. The Living Pavilion by Aman serves breakfast, a Western and Japanese menu through the day and dinner, with tables facing the garden. Private dining is set up in the garden pavilions in fine weather.

Wellness

The Aman Spa has treatment rooms, a gym and a heated outdoor pool, and the onsen baths, fed by the hot spring water of Takagamine, include indoor and outdoor pools in the forest. Guided walks lead through the hills to the temples of Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, and Koetsu-ji, both within a short distance of the hotel.

Weddings and events

Aman Kyoto hosts small weddings in the garden and in the Living Pavilion, often with a Shinto ceremony at a nearby shrine beforehand, and private dinners in the restaurant and the pavilions. The hotel publishes no room capacities, and celebrations of any size take the whole property. Company retreats use the Living Pavilion and the private dining spaces.

Location

Takagamine lies in Kita ward, in the north of Kyoto, about 25 minutes by car from Kyoto Station and 20 minutes from the city centre. Kinkaku-ji is about ten minutes away, the Zen gardens of Ryoan-ji a little further, and the Daitoku-ji temple complex lies to the south-east. Kansai International Airport is about 90 minutes by train or road, and Osaka Itami airport about an hour. Among the luxury hotels of Kyoto, this is the one set in a forest rather than on a street, and the walk to the temples of the northern hills starts from the garden gate.