Lounge at Kinugawa Kan, a place of quiet luxury, now lost to time.

01 Kinugawa KanNikko2016

ISO 1001/6f/9.014mm

Series · 22 prints

Kinugawa Kan

Photographed 2016
Frames 22
Camera NIKON D810
Location Nikko, Tochigi, Japan
Status Abandoned; closed 1999
01 ABOUT THIS SERIES

Series story

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

Kinugawa Kan (きぬ川館本店, Kinukawa-kan Honten) was a hotel in Kinugawa Onsen, a hot-spring town in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. Known by the nickname Kappa-buro, it accommodated many group tour guests, and the business collapsed in 1999 with debts of 3 billion yen. The photographs show a tatami guest room with shoji screens and a low table, a curved bath of small mosaic tiles under an arched wall of windows, and medal game and pachinko machines.

The photographs also show an outdoor pool of pale blue concrete, overgrown, a kitchen of steel benches under pendant lights, and a dining room with fallen ceiling panels and moss on the floor. In 2019 a kappa was still painted on the sign of Kinugawa Kan. That year Nikko City put the cost of pulling down each closed hotel in Kinugawa Onsen at no less than 200 million yen, with hot-spring sources lying beneath them.

Zeirishi.com (2019) and Zeirishi.com photographs (2019)

02 PRINTS

Prints in this series

Hand-signed and numbered, printed from the original RAW file. Open editions in the two smallest sizes; limited editions of 100, 50 and 25 in the three larger, never reissued once they sell through.

Lounge at Kinugawa Kan, a place of quiet luxury, now lost to time.
Lounge
Kappa Onsen at Kinugawa Kan, the heart of Kinugawa Kan’s Kappa Onsen, now silent and dry.
Kappa Onsen
Balcony Looking Downstream at Kinugawa Kan, perched on the crumbling balcony of Kinugawa Kan, the view down the valley.
Balcony Looking Downstream
A former guest room at Japan's derelict Kinugawa Kan. Worn tatami mats and peeling wallpaper reveal years of decay.
Entry Level Guest Room
Guest Room at Kinugawa Kan, a low chabudai table sits at the centre of the room, zaisu chairs still positioned around it.
Guest Room
Engawa at Kinugawa Kan, framed by shoji screens, this was once a place of quiet retreat - a small sitting room where guests.
Engawa
An outdoor pool at Kinugawa Kan, its light blue walls stained and peeling. Dense green foliage has filled the basin completely, and a white pool ladder is still fixed to the wall at the far end.
Public Bath
A long corridor inside the abandoned Kinugawa Kan hotel. Shattered plaster and ceramic debris scatter across the green carpet.
Onsen Entrance
Kinugawa River at Kinugawa Kan, the abandoned Kinugawa Kan hotel complex overlooks the Kinugawa River.
Kinugawa River
Exterior Fire Exit at Kinugawa Kan, a concrete overhang presses low above an exterior corridor on the upper floors.
Exterior Fire Exit
Inside Kinugawa Kan, a disused games room holds arcade cabinets and a karaoke capsule booth. Dust layers the consoles and chairs, while wallpaper peels from the walls.
Games Room
Dining Room at Kinugawa Kan, a thick mat of moss stretches across the floor, creeping over broken tiles and fallen plaster.
Dining Room
A guest room at Kinugawa Kan. Tatami mats and a small lacquered cabinet remain largely undisturbed, and dust has settled across the room.
Main Guest Room
Thatched Walkway at Kinugawa Kan, bamboo reed panels line both walls of a narrow corridor inside Kinugawa Kan.
Thatched Walkway
Kappa Onsen and Kinugawa Kan at Kinugawa Kan, a curved bay of windows juts from the lower facade of Kinugawa Kan.
Kappa Onsen and Kinugawa Kan
Utility Room at Kinugawa Kan, the utility space behind the kitchen, once used for cleaning and hot water supply, is now.
Utility Room
Stoves at Kinugawa Kan, a row of heavy-duty gas stoves sits coated in dust, their burners long extinguished.
Stoves
Poker and Pachinko at Kinugawa Kan, a forgotten corner of Kinugawa Kan’s games room, where the sound of clattering pachinko.
Poker and Pachinko
Kitchen at Kinugawa Kan, stainless-steel benches run the length of the room in two long rows.
Kitchen
A colourful mosaic of cartoon-like figures, rendered in tens of thousands of small tiles, covers a wall inside the abandoned Kinugawa Kan hotel.
Mosaic
Function Room at Kinugawa Kan, a low-ceilinged room stretches deep into shadow.
Function Room
Public Bath Access at Kinugawa Kan, stone steps descend into a narrow corridor choked with debris.
Public Bath Access
03 ABOUT THE PRINTS

How they’re made

Made to order by Brett in Sydney, from the original RAW file. Each print is hand-signed and numbered before it ships.

Paper

Ilford Galerie cotton rag, 310 gsm. Acrylic on metallic gloss, 260 gsm.

Editions

Open in XS and S. Limited in M (100), L (50), XL (25). From $100.

Print tiers →

Lead time

Unframed: 5 to 10 business days. Framed and acrylic: 10 to 20.

04 FIELD NOTE

From the field

Read all field notes
05 REFERENCES

Sources and further reading

  1. 01
    鬼怒川温泉に10年以上残り続ける「廃墟ホテル」、解体は「1棟2億円超」で身動き取れず (Abandoned hotels left standing at Kinugawa Onsen for more than 10 years)税理士ドットコム (Zeirishi.com); 国分瑠衣子 (writer) · 2019zeiri4.com/c_1076/n_830/
    T2
  2. 02
    写真で見る鬼怒川温泉の「廃墟ホテル群」 剥がれ落ちた看板、ボロボロの壁… (The abandoned hotels of Kinugawa Onsen in photographs)税理士ドットコム (Zeirishi.com); 国分瑠衣子 (writer) · 2019zeiri4.com/c_1076/n_833/
    T2
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Read the full story

Articles when they're published. The history behind a place. The day of a shoot. The work between prints. No marketing, no schedule.

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