Surreal photos of Japan's bizarre Love Hotels with UFOs and castles

Surreal photos of Japan's bizarre Love Hotels with UFOs and castles

Last year the French photographer françois prost numerous hours to plan a road trip route, the "love hotels" Japan should document. These special accommodations that can be found across the country offer rental prices and, above all, privacy for their guests. But when he started his 3,000 kilometers long (1,864 miles) trip, the hotels were simply not to be overlooked.

love hotels in Japan: a familiar world

Some love hotels were characterized by cardiac or lip-shaped signage, or bore names such as "Hotel Passion", "Hotel Joy" or "Hotel Babykiss". But the most striking features were the playful architecture, which, paradoxically, was anything but unobtrusive. "You can see spaceships, boats and also a large whale architecture that somehow seems very childish," said Prost in a zoom interview from France. "And many of them are castles," he added about the facades of around 200 love hotels, which he held in his new photography series.

history of the love hotels in Japan

Although guests can rent the rooms for one night, the love hotels in Japan also offer short -term rents for "kyukei" or "rest". These hotels experienced a boom after prostitution was banned in the country in 1958, which led to the closure of brothels and urged the industry into alternative premises. Today, however, the love hotels are less connected to sex work or infidelity, but are primarily aimed at couples who live in small or common family houses.

architectural diversity and design

"Of course there is a little prostitution, but mainly people - especially young couples - go there to have privacy," noted. His route led through Honshu and Shikoku, the largest and smallest of the four main islands of Japan before led back to the capital Tokyo. "Nowadays they are not only intended for sex. They have also increasingly focused on leisure facilities such as Karaoke night clubs."

unique architectural tradition

accommodations with hidden inputs have been in Japan for centuries. However, the modern love hotels are more connected to the post-war period, especially with the "Tsurekomi Yado" (or "Bring-yourself-in-Inn"), which were often operated by families with free rooms. However, the striking architecture, which was documented, was created in the 1960s and 1970s, when the houses became more upgraded. Passers -by had to recognize the function of the buildings at first glance, and the operators wanted to stand out from conventional hotels.

The development of the love hotels

One of the best -known love hotels of the 1970s, the Meguro Emperor, was designed in such a way that it resembles a European castle. This led to a wave of castle -like hotels, many of which can be seen in Prosts new series. In addition, he met buildings for French country houses, tropical beach clubs and - in the case of the Hotel Aladdin in Okayama - an impressive Arab palace with onion domes.

privacy and inconspicuousness

Despite their somewhat striking appearance, the design of the hotels reflects their function. To ensure privacy, the exterior often have a few or even wrong windows. Many of the hotels use self-service check-ins and other design elements that reduce the probability of unwanted encounters. "Everything is planned so that you don't meet someone else when entering the building," said Prost. "So the entrance is different from the output, and there can be an elevator that leads up to the rooms, and another that goes down. All of this is part of the design process."

The future of the love hotels

The special architecture that was discovered was less widespread in the 1990s. On the one hand, the hotels began to specifically turn to women who increasingly made the decisions in relationships. In addition, legislation in the 1980s led to love hotels under the police supervision, which caused newer houses to choose more subtle designs in order not to be classified as such. It is therefore difficult to say exactly how many love hotels are still operated in Japan, but it is assumed that there are over 20,000.

A look at Japanese culture

love hotels are relatively widespread in other Asian countries such as South Korea and Thailand, while short -term rents or motels in other parts of the world often have a similar social function. However, the term remains the most connected to Japan, despite some attempts by the industry, to rename it as a "leisure" or "fashion hotels" to avoid the negative connotations of the original term.

photography as a cultural documentation

cheers believe that the facilities (and his photos) highlight a contrast between Japan's social conservatism and the attitude of people. It describes the unusual designs as a kind of modern colloquial language - everyday architecture that says "more about the country" than famous landmarks. With the help of a newly launched Kickstarter-Kampagne publish. This approach was already successful in the past: Prost’s most recent book "Gentlemen’s Club", which led him more than 6,000 miles through the United States to the colorful architecture of stripclubs to photograph, was published in 2021 on crowdfunding.

He also documented night club facades in France, Spain and the Ivory Coast. In addition to exploring trucks and society after dark, these projects share a common thread: they show not only the facilities, but also the country and the culture in which they act. "I would say these projects are more like landscape photography," he said. "They show the country through the prism of these places."