# Aman Kyoto ![[Aman Kyoto/aman-kyoto-01-living-pavilion-ext.jpg]] ![[Aman Kyoto/aman-kyoto-02-garden-steps.jpg]] ![[Aman Kyoto/aman-kyoto-03-living-pavilion.jpg]] ![[Aman Kyoto/aman-kyoto-04-bedroom.jpg]] ![[Aman Kyoto/aman-kyoto-05-garden-paths.jpg]] ![[Aman Kyoto/aman-kyoto-06-onsen.jpg]] | Attribute | Detail | |---|---| | Architect | [[Kerry Hill Architects]] | | Location | Western edge of Kyoto, Japan (3.2-hectare forest garden) | | Completed | 2019 (posthumous) | | Type | Luxury resort — 26 suites | | Design period | 14 months design / 36 months construction | | Significance | Completed by KHA after Kerry Hill's death (August 2018) | ## About Aman Kyoto was Kerry Hill's second Japanese Aman after Tokyo, but a fundamentally different proposition: where Tokyo was an exercise in the urban sky, Kyoto is a retreat into an ancient forest. The 3.2-hectare site had been established in the 1970s as the setting for a planned private textile museum that was never built, leaving an extraordinary secret garden — dense with mature maples, pines, and moss-covered rock — hidden adjacent to the Kinkaku-ji complex. KHA's design places six **Guest Pavilions** on existing terraced platforms within the garden, ensuring minimal further disruption to the landscape. **Structure and materials** are deliberately reductionist: zinc-clad roofs, dark-stained Japanese cedar (sugi) exteriors, pale lacquered Japanese ash (tamo) interiors, and Japanese cypress (hinoki) bathing tubs. The pavilions are designed to feel Japanese without replicating historical forms — contemporary homages to the ryokan inn typology. Each suite includes tatami mats, tokonoma alcoves, and kakejiku scroll recesses. A geothermal onsen provides spring water bathing. The **Living Pavilion** at the garden's heart contains a sunken fire pit and floor-to-ceiling glass doors opening to a stone terrace over the garden. After Hill's death in August 2018, the garden was **formally renamed in his honour** — a rare distinction. > *"Every detail is considered, every sightline composed."* ## Reviews & Further Reading - [Suspended in time and space: Aman Kyoto — ArchitectureAu](https://architectureau.com/articles/aman-kyoto/) - [Kerry Hill's Architectural Legacy Lives On in Aman Kyoto — Habitus Living](https://www.habitusliving.com/projects/aman-kyoto-kerry-hills-legacy-lives) - [Aman Kyoto — ArchEyes](https://archeyes.com/aman-kyoto-resort-kerry-hill-architects/) - [Design Destination: Aman Kyoto — Est Living](https://estliving.com/design-destination-aman-kyoto-kerry-hill-architects/) - [Aman Kyoto — Wallpaper*](https://www.wallpaper.com/travel/aman-takes-its-cues-from-traditional-japanese-architecture-for-its-new-kyoto-opening)