Views from the Kyoto Hotel

One of the grand hotels not situated in the eastern hills was the Kyoto Hotel, which was located close to the west bank of the Kamogawa river, north of Shijo.

When all stages of the construction were completed (sometime after 1894), it included a three-storey Western-style building. This was one of the tallest buildings in the city, and offered views towards Higashiyama, a perspective long celebrated in guidebooks and prints. 

"It towers above the Japanese structures," the Kyoto City Council wrote in an English-language guide to the city, "and commands an uninterrupted view of the pine-clad hills" (1903, 3). 

By the time the Kyoto Hotel was rebuilt in 1928 as an impressive eight-story earthquake-resistant concrete structure with all the latest mod cons, its views rarely featured in promotions, perhaps because the building no longer stood out in the increasingly developed business centre of Kyoto.