The year 2023 will mark the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Wright Building, the second main building of the Imperial Hotel in Uchisaiwaicho Tokyo.
Mayuyama Junkichi’s writings include the following remarks about the Imperial Hotel Shopping Arcade:
In 1922, the year before the Great Kanto Earthquake, my father opened a small shop in the Imperial Hotel. He had been introduced by the grandfather of a jeweler, Mr. Uyeda. Father acted on his conviction that he would have to do business with not just Japan but the world as his clients. He did not speak English at all, but he employed Takano Yasaburo, a somewhat older man who was from his home town and had worked for a long time at the Morimura in New York, to run the shop. He left the business at the Imperial Hotel up to Takano. The shop gradually grew larger and larger. At present, there are over forty types of shops in the arcade. Ours is not the largest but occupies a considerable space. It began as an antique art shop but, adjusting to customers’ preferences, now specializes in jewelry.
[Mayuyama Junkichi, Kansha, In appreciation, Benridō 1993 p. 15]
The new Imperial Hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright was completed in 1922. The original plan did not include an arcade, but the revised plan provided for opening eight stores in the basement of the hotel. While a basement, it was designed so that people could have access to it from the street, and it also included a bar and swimming pool.
It was the founder of Uyeda Jewelry, the grandfather of its present owner, who helped then with our new shop. I met him and got to know him well. Mr. Inumaru Tetsuzo asked Mr. Uyeda to assist us; he accepted the task and was a great help. . . .
Initially, we stocked products of the souvenir sort, including handbags, pajamas, and postcards. They were all inexpensive. I was a fourth grader in elementary school and often went to play at the shop. . . .
When I think of our shop at the Imperial Hotel, I remember the kindly assistance we received from Mr. Inumaru Tetsuzo and Mr. Uyeda.
[Mayuyama Junkichi, Kobijutsushō Mayuyama Matsutarō to kanshō toki no sekai , Antique dealer Mayuyama Matsutarō and the world of ceramics as art, Benridō 1998 ]
Opening the shop in the arcade in the “Wright Building" (1923-1967) was possible thanks to the overlap between the Imperial Hotel's services and Mayuyama Matsutaro's successful business experience in "catering to the tastes of customers.” Over time, those running the shop learned to handle shipping merchandise overseas, dealing with different currencies, and issuing invoices and export documents in English, while dealing in the fine arts and craft arts. Mayuyama Junkichi would help at the shop in the Imperial Hotel arcade during summer vacation, learning English in the process.
After the age of the Wright building ended and the current building, the hotel’s third-generation Main Building, opened in 1970, Mayuyama Junkichi, then 56, opened a Japanese antique shop in the new Imperial Hotel Arcade. His message upon opening the shop called for it to serve as an information center for appreciating Japanese art.
In the 1970s, Mayuyama Junkichi would bring us, his grandchildren, to the Imperial Hotel. To us children, the Imperial Hotel was a foreign land. There I first learned how to order warm apple pie topped with ice cream. It was also at the Imperial Hotel that I learned about privacy and how to use a house phone. The lobby, with its high ceiling and pleasant buzz, remains the same today. To give a message to someone there for a meeting, the bellboy would walk rapidly throughout the lobby, ringing a bell and holding up a sign with the person’s name written on it. I recall that scene with affection. The Imperial Hotel operated under different rules from those governing everyday life. It was elegant and fascinating, and roused my yearning for the world overseas.
In 2023, to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Wright building, the second-generation Main Building of the Imperial Hotel at Uchisaiwai-cho, Tokyo, IMPERIAL TIMES, a commemorative display area, was set up beside the hotel’s main entrance. The focus is on the Wright building, since its design by Frank Lloyd Wright is the pride of the Imperial Hotel, but the display also presents materials from the opening of the first main building, in 1890, to the plans for the next new main building, which is scheduled for completion in 2036. The display explores the history of Japan’s leading hotel, a trusted institution internationally. Times change, buildings are replaced, but the highly skilled people running the hotel carry on the spirit with which it was founded. It retains its quality, its dignity, and continues to charm its guests: that is my impression of IMPERIAL TIMES and of the Imperial Hotel today.
The Imperial Hotel is where Mayuyama Junkichi learned to work with customers in Europe and America. It was a place that suited him, a place where he spent time with people important to him. To the third Main Building: Thank you!
Ayako Mayuyama
references:
[SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2022 IMPERIAL HOTEL]
[ IMPERIAL number120, 2023]