A 1923 bank building, Japanese aesthetics and spaces without fixed boundaries: K5 Hotel Tokyo shows how surprising architecture can be.

A spoon gliding through soft egg yolk, a ray of light shining through a window or the tinkling of a glass in the evening: sometimes it’s not the loud sounds but the quiet moments that linger in the memory. The design hotel K5, designed by Claesson Koivisto Rune, is located in a historic bank building in the heart of Tokyo’s financial district.

Japan is especially worth visiting in 2025: with the Expo in Osaka the country places a strong focus on the future – with themes such as sustainability, innovation, and societal transformation. It’s a great opportunity to (re)discover Japan not just as a technological powerhouse, but as a destination rooted in deep aesthetics and mindfulness.

The number five is pronounced “go” in Japanese. And we gladly accept this invitation. Where is the journey taking us? To the financial district of Tokyo, into a hundred-year-old former bank building that now houses the K5 Hotel. The interior design, crafted by Swedish architecture firm Claesson Koivisto Rune, is based on Japanese life philosophies, which often blend seamlessly with Scandinavian design principles. These five design elements reveal the underlying concepts: