| Imperial Hotel | |
|---|---|
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 The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo in 2012 | |
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| General information | |
| Location | 1-1, Uchisaiwai-cho 1-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8558, Japan |
| Management | Imperial Hotel, Ltd. |
| Website | |
| www.imperialhotel.co.jp | |
The Imperial Hotel (帝国ホテル, teikoku hoteru) is a hotel in Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda ward, Tokyo. It was created in the late 1880s at the request of the Japanese aristocracy to cater to the increasing number of Western visitors to Japan. The hotel site is located just south of the Imperial Palace grounds, next to the previous location of the Palace moat.[1] The modern hotel overlooks the Palace, the 40-acre (16 ha) Western-style Hibiya Park, and the Yurakucho and Ginza neighborhoods.[1]
Three main buildings have stood on the hotel site, each of which embodied the finest Western design of its era.[1] Including annexes, there have been at least 10 structures that have been part of the Imperial Hotel, including two designed by Frank Lloyd Wright:
- The original Imperial Hotel, designed by Yuzuru Watanabe (1890–1922)
- Hotel Metropole in Tsukiji, purchased as an annex (1906–1910)
- First Imperial Hotel annex (1906–1919)
- A temporary annex, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright when the original hotel annex burnt (1920–1923)
- New Imperial Hotel main building, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (1922–1967)
- 1954 Imperial Hotel annex (1954–1979)
- 1958 Imperial Hotel annex (1958–1979)
- Imperial Hotel parking structure (1969–present)
- Third (and current) main building, which replaced the Frank Lloyd Wright main building (1970–present)
- Imperial Hotel Tower Building, which replaced the 1954 and 1958 annexes (1983–2024)
In a reference to the three Edo era branch houses of the Tokugawa clan, the Imperial Hotel, Hotel Okura Tokyo, and Hotel New Otani Tokyo are often referred to as one of the three great hotels (御三家, gosanke) of Tokyo.