The Imperial Hotel / Frank Lloyd Wright
The Imperial Hotel (1923-1968) by Frank Lloyd Wright was located in Tokyo.
It was the second building by Wright at the Imperial Hotel site. The first was a temporary annex he designed when the original hotel annex burned down. In 1913, after a couple years of correspondence with the hotel's owner, Aisaku Hayashi, Wright was asked to design and build a new larger structure to replace the main hotel. Construction started in 1919. As you might recall from a previous post, Antonin and Noémi Raymond worked on the project. Antonin was the project architect, and Noémi worked on decorative art design elements. Koichi Kitazawa and Kyosuke Matono were also architects working on the project under Antonin.
The new hotel, seen here, opened in 1923.
By the 1960's the hotel was in disrepair. Most notably was the deterioration of the carved oya stone Wright used for the Maya revival elements. In 1968, despite attempts to save it, the hotel was leveled to make way for a new 10-story Imperial Hotel.
However, it wasn't a total loss. The Main Lobby was dismantled and relocated to the Meiji-mura Museum Village in Aichi Prefecture, where it was restored and reconstructed. In May I took a day trip from Nagoya to see it. The architectural museum an incredible collection of buildings, bridges, trains and even factories that have been moved from all over the world.
The original lobby furniture designed by Wright and executed by Japanese furniture makers was also saved. Seen here are the Peacock chairs. 
