The symmetrical beauty of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, the meditative colossus of Kotokuin, and the Zen-inspired splendors of Kenchoji and Enkakuji may win Kamakura inscription on the World Heritage List. Comparatively unknown are its Western-style buildings constructed after Kamakura became accessible from Tokyo by rail in about an hour in 1889. Those meriting preservation receive the designation ¡°Scenically Important Structures.¡±
One so designated in 2004 is the New Kamakura Hotel, which opened as the Yamagata Hotel in 1924. The building features neat rows of wooden sash windows set in mustard-yellow hand-textured stucco walls. The roof is hipped, and battens parallel to its slope anchor the copper roofing. This boutique hotel is too charming ¡ª like the set for a cinematic romance ¡ª for its location at the rear of a car park.
While its design charms, its semiotics surprise. The parking valets work out of a shack topped by an outsize sign reading ¡°Motor Pool.¡± Billboards display drawings of the hotel over which are superimposed photos of writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa and poet Kanako Okamoto. The transom above the hotel entrance says ¡°Vailkommen,¡± a Swedish welcome in combination with tall palm trees transporting you to a polyglot port in South America, an illusion strengthened by a mixed Francophone couple coming out of the white swing doors.
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