A large room with wood floors and exposed ceiling beams, featuring modular green and blue sofas arranged around a low wooden table, enclosed by tall arched glass partitions.

October 13, 2026

Words: Elizabeth Fazarre

Photography: Jimmy Cohrssen

A Luxury Hotel Takes Root In A Former Prison In Japan

Japan’s Meiji Period, from 1868 to 1912, is marked by sweeping political and societal change. Emperor Meiji overthrew more than 600 years of shogunate rule and replaced it with a cabinet-style government, ended 250 years of national isolation, and began rapidly industrializing the country, building railroads, telegraph lines, a European-style banking system, and a strong military and navy. New connections between East and West are particularly visible in the architecture and design from this era, and one of Japan’s most surprising examples of the cross-pollination recently underwent an equally surprising transformation.

The Hoshinoya Nara Prison is a 48-suite boutique hotel, hosted within the 1908 red-brick walls of Japan’s last remaining Meiji-era prison, part of a series of five penitentiaries built to symbolize the modernizing nation. This one was originally designed by Ministry of Justice architect Keijiro Yamashita with a radial Haviland System layout that places an interior guard tower at the center of five cell-block spokes. Now, thanks to Tokyo studio Azuma Architect & Associates, those cell houses are sumptuous accommodations, restored, reimagined, and reused, along with several other buildings across the 25-acre complex, as the latest heritage-based stay by Japanese hospitality brand Hoshino Resorts, for which architect and firm president Rie Azuma has previously completed properties in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Bali.

Behind The Design Of The Hoshinoya Nara Prison, A 48-Suite Boutique Hotel

  • A large, open room with exposed wooden ceiling beams, modular green and blue floor seating, and glass partitions etched with circular geometric patterns.
    At Hoshinoya Nara Prison, a 1908-built penitentiary turned 48-suite luxury boutique hotel in central Japan by Azuma Architect & Associates, custom glass panels by Tokyo studio Awatsuji Design partition various areas of the main lounge, the prison’s former lecture hall, where Hans Hopfer’s Mah Jong sofas surround a cherrywood cocktail table, also custom, by Japanese master cabinetmaker Chuzo Tozawa.
  • A view through an open arched stone gateway onto a gravel courtyard leading to a large, multi-story brick building.
    Guests enter the hotel compound through a set of the site’s original gates.
  • High-angle view of a circular building interior with a wooden balcony overlooking a ground floor lobby containing round purple, pink, and white tufted ottomans.
    Sacha Lakic’s Bubble ottomans turn what was once the central guardhouse into a lobby seating area.
  • Looking upward at the vaulted, octagonal ceiling of an interior space with a central curved wooden balcony and a metal ladder.
    Designated a National Important Cultural Property by the Japanese government in 2017, the Meiji-era prison’s historic architecture has been preserved and restored.
  • A lounge area with a large central sectional sofa, small wooden tables, and two accent chairs near three arched windows.
    Tozawa tables appoint another lounge.

It’s rare that a work of architecture from this unique period of Japanese history is considered for a contemporary project, so the opportunity was particularly exciting, Azuma begins. “These Western-style buildings, or yōkan, were brought to life through a unique collaboration: Early Japanese architects trained in Western traditions working alongside local master craftsmen versed in traditional timber construction,” she says. The brick walls are laid in an English bond and the main entrance is announced by a Romanesque portal, while the wood ceilings have exposed bent rafters, in the more Japanese taruki tradition. “Rather than trying to mimic classic European design, we highlighted the hybrid character created by the Japanese artisans who originally built it,” continues Azuma, whose work is known to blend cultural nuance, craft, and understated luxury with a site’s essence.

Before it could become a hotel, the compound needed a renovation. Located about an hour outside of Kyoto, in a former capital city that most foreign tourists now visit for its population of head-bowing deer, the Nara Prison was designated a National Important Cultural Property by the Japanese government in 2017, just before it ceased its most recent operations, as a juvenile reform center since 1946. “While it required roof repairs, fresh paint, wall restoration, and structural reinforcement, it was far from a dilapidated state,” Azuma notes. But it did need a “complete overhaul of the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, including modern HVAC.” Historic protection extends to the buildings’ walls, its bricks made by prisoners themselves in the early 20th century, so structural steel pillars were added only where needed, to avoid introducing an industrial look. Eschewing any nails or fasteners in the walls, Azuma and her team redesigned each space with standalone contemporary furnishings, many of them custom-made to fit the unusual rooms.

Renovating A Former Prison Into A Luxurious Escape

  • A row of three prison cell doors, one of which is open, set into a grey and white wall.
    Each of the 48 guest suites, which range from 538 to 645 square feet, is created by connecting multiple former prison cells.
  • A person sits on a bench reading in a recessed alcove with an arched window, next to a small wooden table and a cup of coffee.
    A reading nook off the library has a built-in bench and table by Tozawa.
  • Six armchairs in blue and green arranged in pairs around small tables, facing a large window overlooking a landscaped courtyard.
    Cocktails are served with a garden view every night in the dining lounge, furnished with Lakic’s Spoutnik armchairs.
  • A square white bathtub filled with water, centered in front of two small windows set into a textured tiled wall.
    Each suite includes a soaking tub, sunlit by original barred windows.
  • A double bed nestled inside a wooden alcove with integrated lighting.
    An open box of European cherry surrounds each bed for an intimate, soundproof sleeping environment.

In the main cell blocks, the guest suites are narrow and linear, like a first-class train car, with the sleeping nook at one end and a deep soaking tub at the other. Formed by joining several cells—each only about 54 square feet, or 3 tatami mats, in area—they range in size from 538 to 645 square feet and receive sunlight through original barred windows. Some of the suites have barrel-vaulted ceilings, their original brickwork hidden under layers of plaster. Stripping it away, “This raw brick became the visual anchor for the entire interior scheme—guiding our selection of paint colors for new walls and controlling the tones chosen for the floor carpeting,” Azuma explains. European cherrywood paneling forms a warm, open box around the floor bed and builds the cabinetry, affixed with sconces handmade by Tokyo-based ceramist Tobimatsu Toki.

Fellow Japanese artisan, woodworker Hinoki Kogei, designed tables, benches, and built-in banquettes throughout, including in the private dining rooms, where guests are served yōshoku meals in lieu of a more communal hotel restaurant. For aperitifs and after-hours libations, there is a separate dining lounge. Small groups can sink into Sacha Lakic’s enveloping Spoutnik armchairs and enjoy picture window views of the new garden, the crisscrossing, “choose your own adventure” geometry of its granite pathways linking hotel buildings with intimate outdoor patios. They also can lead to the Nara Prison Museum, which spans a preserved cell block and seven other historic buildings on-site (hotel guests have unlimited access and special dedicated hours to browse its exhibitions on prison conditions, its rehabilitation programs, and architectural design).

A Melding Of Global Influences

  • Aerial view of a garden with geometric white paths, wooden seating platforms, and a brick building.
    Landscape architect Studio On Site crisscrossed the gardens with granite pathways that lead guests between hotel buildings and intimate dining patios.
  • A hotel room featuring a kitchenette with a kettle, a wooden dining table, and a view into a bedroom with a bed.
    ne of the luxury train–carlike suites, with millwork in more cherry and walls of original brick made by former prisoners.
  • A long, narrow prison corridor with two levels of cells behind white railings and a blue patterned floor.
    Original cell blocks turned guest suites.
  • Lounge area with three arched windows, built-in shelving, cushioned seating nooks, and four armchairs arranged around two wooden coffee tables.
    Gio Ponti’s D.151.4 armchairs in the main lounge.
  • Aerial view of a historic prison complex with a central circular hub and radiating wings of brick buildings with tiled roofs.
    The red-brick building’s radial Haviland System plan, a modern standard for prison design through the mid-19th century; photography: courtesy of Hoshinoya.

Kogei’s woodwork is perhaps most celebrated in the hotel’s main lounge, which had been a lecture hall when the site was a prison. In one area of it, plush Gio Ponti armchairs serve a bevy of his rectangular tables near built-ins lined with books for guests to peruse. In another, colorful Hans Hopfer sofas surround Kogei’s large, low tables in more warm cherry. Decorative glass panels by sister-led Tokyo studio Awatsuji Design partition the spaces. Tapestries by Aiko Tezuka along with artworks by other contemporary Japanese talents further bridge the old and the new here and throughout.

  • A view through a stone doorway into a small room with a wooden table, two blue chairs, a window with metal bars, and two lamps. A sign marked “53” is on the wall to the left.
    Rather than in a traditional hotel restaurant, meals are served in private dining rooms, which occupy former solitary confinement cells with wayfinding also by Awatsuji Design.
  • A dining room framed by a brick archway, featuring a wooden table with four pink upholstered chairs, two windows, and two blue wall prints.
    Pendants by ceramist Tobimatsu Toki hang over a custom table flanked by Raphael Navot’s Identities chairs in a dining room cell; photography: courtesy of Hoshinoya.
  • A hallway in an old brick building with a red information sign, a central display case, and an overhead sign marked with the letter A.
    Open to the public, the on-site Nara Prison Museum presents the history of the facility, which most recently was a juvenile reform center; photography: courtesy of Hoshinoya.
  • A wooden table with purple chairs seen through a window with white vertical security bars and three yellow pendant lights.
    A private dining room is visible through original cell bars.
  • The historic red brick gate of the Nara Prison, featuring two symmetrical towers and a central arched entrance at twilight.
    The early 20th–century architecture mixes European and Japanese styles, which was typical of the period.

“Every Japanese architect studies Western architectural history—from Greece and Rome through to various European styles—alongside Japanese history,” Azuma remarks. “However, putting those historical theories into practice on a real-world project was a first for our studio.” When Hoshinoya Nara Prison guests enter the preserved wrought-iron gates that still guard the site, they are stepping into a new future for this hybrid past.

PROJECT TEAM 
rie azuma; kaoru shiba; yuji tanaka; ikumi kamimura; kazuhito shiga; makiko sakai; ryota kimura; yuki wakatsuki; lee yun chen; takaya suga; keita mizoguchi; kensuke akazawa; ayaka ito; kiichi hisamatsu; kanako maenami; sayaka takeuchi: azuma architect & associates. studio on site: landscape architect. hinoki kogei: custom wood-furniture workshop. yasui architects & engineers: cultural conservation renovation. illumination of city environment: lighting design.

PRODUCT SOURCES 
FROM FRONT 
roche bobois: sofas (main lounge), ottomans (lobby), armchairs (dining lounge), chairs (dining room). sumisho interior international: sectional (lounge). molteni&c: chairs (main lounge). THROUGHOUT tobimatsu toki: custom lighting.

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