Hotel Nansui
Kochi-city, Kochi, Japan
"Creating Space for Absence and Memory—Weaving Sentiment"
This branding project revitalizes hotel nansui, a long-established hotel in Kochi that operated for over 50 years on the site of Sakamoto Ryoma’s birthplace. Although the location holds historic significance, no physical trace of his home remains, and any related artifacts have been enshrined in museums due to his legendary status.
The design embraces the absence of Ryoma and the lingering memory of place, proposing a space that invites visitors to layer their own thoughts and feelings upon that emptiness. Rather than representing Ryoma with tangible elements, the design engages with what he might have seen or thought, the world he experienced, and weaves this intangible presence into the architecture and furnishings through an ongoing dialogue.
The key to this approach lies in patterns—the only form that remains as a symbolic trace. These motifs, decorative elements unchanged since Ryoma’s time, were used as symbols of memory. By preserving only these unchanged forms, and leaving formless things absent as voids, the space entrusts interpretation to the imagination of visitors.
