High Above
A RYOKAN IN THE SKY AT AMAN TOKYO
Soaring above Otemachi, Aman Tokyo moves at a different tempo to the city below. Tokyo pulses in grids of light and motion, yet here the atmosphere settles into measured calm. Floor-to-ceiling glass frames the Imperial Palace gardens in quiet panorama, Mount Fuji faint on the horizon when the air is clear. Architect Kerry Hill approached the project as an urban meditation on the Japanese house, shaping space through proportion, material and light. Stone, camphor wood and washi panels temper the scale of the tower, creating interiors that feel grounded despite their elevation.
Aman Tokyo marked the brand’s first urban chapter, translating its resort sensibility into vertical form. Hill embraced restraint, allowing texture and volume to carry the experience. Oversized rooms draw from ryokan traditions, pared back and tactile, with sliding screens revealing stone-laid bathrooms anchored by deep furo tubs. The relationship between interior and exterior feels carefully calibrated, guided by framing rather than decoration.
“We like to think that each building is designed especially for its context and its place”, Hill once said. “I feel that you need to perpetuate the traditions within the culture and material of a place through your architecture so that it is appropriate.”
Kerry Hill, Kerry Hill Architects
At the centre of the hotel, the 30-metre pool rests within a vaulted stone atrium. Light moves slowly across its surface, shifting in tone as the day unfolds. The scale is monumental, yet the atmosphere remains hushed. Nearby, onsen baths clad in black basalt invite quiet immersion, the ritual unfolding in shadow and warmth.
Evenings settle gently. After a long day navigating Tokyo in rare winter snowfall, we returned to the warmth above the city. Snow softened the rooftops and highways below as we drifted first into the heated pool, letting the cold dissolve from our shoulders, before continuing to the spa. A scrub of camphor, kuromoji (Japanese rosewood) powder and clay warmed the skin, followed by a massage blending shiatsu precision with slower western strokes.
Afterwards, in the relaxation room facing outward, Tokyo gently illuminates itself beyond the glass. Office towers glowed in ordered grids; red threads of traffic traced the highways, snow dissolving into light. Wrapped in warmth, we lay in near darkness as the city carried on below.
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