The Imperial Hotel Story

Today we complete our model of Frank Lloyd Wright’s dramatic Mayan Revival-style Imperial Hotel in Japan. The original building survived two events that flattened large portions of Tokyo: 1923’s Great Kantō Earthquake and the American bombing of the city during World War II.

In 1968 it was decided to replace the old hotel with a more space-efficient and much larger modern hotel tower. Portions of the Imperial Hotel, including the grand entrance/lobby and the reflecting pool, were saved and painstakingly relocated to the Meiji Mura Museum, an open-air architectural theme park near Nagoya. 

Building this model in Lego has been a fascinating challenge. The extra photos show Paladian laying the last brick, and the other one shows me visiting the hotel in Nagoya in June 2007.

(Have been a little behind this week, so I finally put up 6 back blips.)