From Friday 22 October through Tuesday 23 November 2010 (a public holiday), Daikanyama i Studio hosts a limited-run “hotel exhibition” called LLOVE. One minute on foot from Daikanyama Station, the project turns designed guest rooms into something you can visit by day and, with a reservation, sleep in by night.
All dates, prices, and hours below come from October 2010; the event is long finished.
Still in LLOVE — rooms as installation
LLOVE grew out of commemorations for 400 years of Japan–Netherlands diplomatic relations in 2009. Japanese and Dutch creators were invited to imagine hotel guest rooms and build them as installation works. The theme is “Still in LLOVE” — a phrase that keeps the project’s playful misspelling at the center of the pitch.
That framing explains why the event feels hybrid. It is an exhibition you walk through, but also a hotel you can stay in. Both modes require advance booking; details were handled through llove.jp at the time.
Day visit, night stay
During daylight hours, LLOVE operates as a viewable exhibition. After dark, selected rooms open for overnight stays. The experience advertised in the source is specific: spend a night inside artistic spaces that designers and architects built only for this show — not permanent hospitality fit-outs dressed up as art.
The hospitality concept deliberately avoids over-service. Guests are meant to move through the space at their own pace, in a mood-led way — a hotel type still somewhat unusual in Japan at the time. Less choreography, more freedom.
Supporting spaces extend the stay-or-visit loop. A cafe highlights ingredients tied to Nara — including Yamato vegetables, traditional regional produce — while shops sell Dutch-themed goods and books. Those outlets were open to people who were not booking a room.
Dutch design, Tokyo timing
LLOVE’s concept credit goes to Suzanne Oxenaar, director of Amsterdam’s Lloyd Hotel — a reference point for design-led lodging in the Netherlands. The project also aligned with DESIGNTIDE TOKYO, positioning LLOVE as a place to encounter Dutch design while the wider design week was active.
Location mattered for that audience. Daikanyama i Studio was pitched as easy to reach from DESIGNTIDE TOKYO venues, making the building a meeting point where designers from different countries could encounter one another in person — not only through slides or catalog pages.
The event itself was co-organized by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Nara Prefecture, framed as a joint introduction to Dutch and Japanese design cultures.
Eight rooms, eight names
Guest rooms were assigned to eight design teams — creators described in the source as among the most watched designers and architects of the moment:
- Richard Hutten
- Joep van Lieshout
- Piet Hein Eek
- Scholten & Baijings
- Nagayama Yuko
- Nakayama Hideyuki
- Nakamura Ryuji
- Nagasawa Tsune
The original photo caption maps specific rooms to makers: #303 by Nagasawa Tsune; #302 by Nagayama Yuko; #307 by Richard Hutten; #314 by the LLOVE Creative Team with Nagasawa Tsune.
Shops and cafe without a room key
Even visitors who skipped lodging could use several anchors on site. The cafe served meals built around Yamato vegetables. BOEK DECK, a bookshop produced by Utrecht, focused on Dutch reading material. SOUVENIR FROM TOKYO + AMSTERDAM operated as the first satellite location of the National Art Center, Tokyo museum shop — a crossover retail moment the source highlights explicitly.
The suggested luxury itinerary is simple and very Daikanyama: dine at the cafe, stroll the neighborhood after dark, then sleep inside an art-directed room. A one-month window made the whole proposition feel scarce by design.
Practical details (historical)
- Dates: Friday 22 October – Tuesday 23 November 2010 (holiday)
- Note: guest rooms and related viewing were not open for tours on 22 October
- Hours: Cafe 11:30–23:00; shop 11:30–20:00
- Venue: Daikanyama i Studio
- Address: 1-36-10 Ebisu-Nishi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
- Admission: Free (exhibition areas as listed)
- Lodging: from ¥8,800 per night including breakfast
- Inquiries: [email protected]
- Organizer reference (historical): LLOVE official site
Why it belongs in the archive
Daikanyama sits inside Shibuya Ward — close enough to the district sibch.tv covered daily that a month-long design hotel counted as local culture news. LLOVE is worth keeping because it documents an early Tokyo experiment in exhibition-as-stay, Dutch–Japanese design diplomacy, and a Daikanyama venue temporarily behaving like both gallery and inn.
For a live view of central Shibuya a short trip south from Daikanyama, see the Shibuya Crossing live camera. Sleeping inside an art room is a novelty stay — contrast it with how ultra-luxury pricing works in most expensive hotel in Japan.
