peculiar facades of roadside love hotels paint françois prost's japan photo diary

François Prost captures Japan’s quirky Love Hotel facades

Photographer François Prost unveils Love Hotel, a photo series capturing the facades of Japan‘s love hotels during a 2023 road trip from Tokyo to Shikoku Island. The collection focuses on roadside architecture, showcasing faded signage and colorful facades that reflect a specific aspect of Japanese popular culture. This visual documentation shifts away from conventional depictions of Japan, instead painting a vernacular portrait of the area, highlighting the, often overlooked, design elements of these unusual establishments.

all images by François Prost

Love Hotel series to be published as monographic photo book

The series explores the juxtaposition between Japan’s densely urbanized megacities and its orderly agricultural countryside through the prism of love hotel exteriors. These hotels, rooted in Japanese popular culture, are designed to offer couples a private space away from the limited privacy of small family homes. Here, the photographer links distinctive architectural typologies with a cultural phenomenon reflecting on intimacy.

The Love Hotel series, launched on Kickstarter, will be published as a 230-page book, consistent in format with Prost’s previous photographic studies of vernacular architecture, including ‘After Party’ (France, 2011/23), ‘Gentlemen’s Club’ (USA, 2019), ‘Discoteca’ (Spain, 2020), and ‘Club Ivoire’ (Ivory Coast, 2023).

François Prost’s photography collection documents the quirky facades of Japan’s love hotels

roadside architecture, faded signs, and vibrant facades take center stage in Love Hotel photo series

distinctive love hotel designs reflect a cultural phenomenon tied to intimacy in Japan

Prost’s photography highlights the contrast between Japan’s urban landscape and its rural countryside

the facades feature colorful, peculiar designs that challenge conventional architectural aesthetics

Love Hotel shifts the lens from traditional Japanese imagery to overlooked roadside structures

the series situates love hotels within a broader context of Japan’s vernacular architecture

from castles to boats and sea creatures, Japan’s love hotels set up the most peculiar ornamental facades

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project info:

name: Love Hotel

photographer: François Prost | @francoisprost