a former prison becomes a hotel in Nara
On a 25-acre site in Nara, Japanred brick walls and radiant cell blocks now frame HOSHINOYA Nara Prison, a 48-room hotel built inside one of Japan’s most unusual modern landmarks. The original announcement came out inside June 2022 and again when more details were revealed in the September 2023.
The former prison, completed in 1908, bears the scale and discipline of a Meiji-era institution, with a central guardhouse and long wings that extend outward in a design designed for surveillance.
Hoshino Resorts opened the property as a heritage hotel after about seven years of restoration and renovationconverting a nationally designated Important Cultural Property into an overnight accommodation facility.
The project is worth considering both for its design challenge and its unusual schedule. It is a building designed for containment and adapted to suites, living rooms, courtyards and a museum, while maintaining the spatial logic that made it so special in the first place.
HOSHINOYA Nara Prison opens inside the former Nara Prison, a Meiji era landmark completed in 1908
radial honeycomb panels and handmade brick
Designed for Hoshino Resorts with Azuma Architect & Associatesthe former prison is the last of the Five Great Meiji Prisons to remain almost completely intact. The Haviland system layout radiates from a central guard station, giving the complex a strong geometric order that still shapes the visitor experience today.
Visitors enter through the original main gate before facing the watchtower and cell wings beyond, where the building’s former function remains legible through proportion, repetition and material.
Inside the guest rooms, former cells have been connected to create suites, including the 11-Cell Deluxe, the largest room type in the property. Exposed brickwork appears under areas of the original plaster, ceiling moldings have been retained and new steel reinforcements sit alongside the timber cladding.
The renovation does its strongest work when these layers remain visible, allowing the hand-made brick, vaulted ceilings and additional structure to be read together without smoothing over the building’s past.
the 48-room hotel retains the radial honeycomb block layout of the original Haviland system design
new interiors within old walls
The main living room occupies an open patio area where original beams, arched openings and contemporary lighting set the pace of the interior. Rie Azuma of the Azuma Environmental Architectural Research Institute led the architectural design of the hotel, working with a building whose spatial character was already unusually strong.
European furniture is featured throughout the property as a reference to the Western influence that shaped parts of the design culture of the Meiji era.
The landscape design, led by Hiroki Hasegawa of the Site Design and Planning Bureau, treats the areas inside the walls as “outside in.” Open buffer zones have been preserved where possible, while planted fragments and geometric white corridors introduce a new reading of the courtyard.
At night, lighting by Masanori Takeishi of the ICE Urban Environmental Lighting Institute uses indirect lighting and handcrafted ceramic fixtures, giving depth to corridors and open spaces without turning the fabric of the prison into a theatrical backdrop.
the main living room occupies an atrium defined by original beams, arched openings and new lighting
keep as new use
The project also includes Hoshino Resorts’ Nara Prison Museum, connected to the hotel via an exclusive visitor path. The museum interprets the architectural and social history of the former prison through design and art, extending adaptive reuse beyond the rooms themselves.
The maintenance and renovation was carried out with Yasui Architects & Engineers, with seismic reinforcement and hotel infrastructure integrated into the Important Cultural Estate.
Throughout the project, the most compelling design move is the decision to keep the institutional order of the building visible. HOSHINOYA Nara Prison starts a broader conversation around adaptive reuse in Japan, where preservation increasingly depends on programs that can keep large historic structures active.
Here, the hotel’s form brings guests into direct contact with a difficult building type, allowing the brick walls, radial floor plan and renovated details to convey the story in the space.
Hand-hewn brick is featured beneath the original plaster finishes throughout the renovated interior
The project includes the Nara Prison Museum by Hoshino Resorts, connected to the hotel via a visitor path
