Japan Bids Adieu to 50-year old 'The Hotel Okura ' Monday August 31,2015

 

The Hotel Okura, which hosted US presidents, movie stars and other celebrities, is closing it's doors more than a half century after it heralded Japan's post-war coming out party to make way for a pair of glass towers ahead of the 2020 Olympics

The redo raised an outcry from those who love the Okura's unique mélange of modernism and traditional Japanese aesthetics. But social media campaigns, a petition and other efforts to "Save the Okura" just underscored the futility of resisting Tokyo's flood-tide of pre-Olympics urban renewal.

Other major landmarks, such as the decades-old fish market in Tsukiji and the National Stadium also are being replaced over the protests of many who are sad to see them go.

Andrew Lindsay, a Deutsche Bank executive who took part in a "Save the Okura" Facebook campaign, spent hours exploring the hotel during his first visit to Tokyo in the 1990s. During his last visit, he sat in the lobby, with its round, red lacquer tables and chairs arrayed like plum blossoms, soaking it all in one last time.

The building will close after a "Finale Concert" and ceremony Monday evening August 31,2015 in its lobby, a spacious venue that has been the site of much deal-making over the years: The Okura is just across the street from the US Embassy, and those involved say many high-level meetings were held there to elude the Japanese media.

The Okura's business has seen ups and downs over the 125 years since its founding in 1873 by Baron Kihachiro Okura, a weapons trader turned industrialist.
Like many others, the Okura business empire was broken up by the American Occupation after Japan's defeat in World War II but nonetheless thrived in the postwar years until Okura & Co., its flagship and core business, went bust in 1998 in what was then Japan's third-biggest bankruptcy.
Under a 2001 restructuring Tokyo-based Hotel Okura Co. retained the remaining assets of the group. Its Okura Hotels & Resorts operates 26 hotels in Japan and other parts of Asia as well as Hawaii and Amsterdam.

During the demolition of the main building and construction of the new ones, many of the Okura's most popular restaurants and bars will operate from the hotel's 430-room South Annex, including Sazanka, said to be the grill where teppanyaki originated, its wine and cooking schools and its "Go Salon."