“Love hotels are a unique and deeply rooted part of Japanese culture,” says photographer François Prost. “These locations have a very visually talkative quality: they are expressive in their design and reflect aspects of local culture, values and even fantasies.”
During a trip to Japan in 2023, when Prost exhibited an earlier series of works called Gentlemen’s club in a gallery in Tokyo he started a road trip from the capital to the island of Shikoku in the southeast of the country. At the gallery’s urging, he undertook a new project during his visit, documenting the facades of love hotels – also called ’boutique’ or ‘fashion hotels’ – that offer rooms at cheap rates for short stays.
Based in Lyon, France, Prost approaches his subjects as features of the landscape that characterize a specific vernacular and highlight idiosyncratic or taboo facets of local culture. Gentlemen’s Club, In 2019, for example, he documented American strip clubs along a southern route from Miami to Los Angeles. He also visited Ivorian, French and Spanish nightclubs in series such as Afterparty And disco.
“I choose specific types of locations in each country – those with distinct, often kitschy or roadside architecture – and photograph them across the region with a consistent framing style,” says Prost. “I am drawn to the aesthetics of these places, and how their facades reveal something about the people who inhabit or visit them.”
His latest series, Love hotel, captures the unmistakably colorful designs of roadside accommodations, ranging from ships and castles to flowers and a pink whale. “The locations are intended to evoke a sense of romance, escape and fantasy, but they should also feel safe and inviting, not tacky or dingy,” says Prost. “That’s why some of these places have an almost ‘Disney-esque’ aesthetic, playful yet carefully curated.” Estimates of the number of love hotels in Japan range from 10,000 to 40,000.
Prost has launched a new book for the series Kickstarter that highlights the creativity and occasional hilarity of these infamous destinations. “I hope viewers will be struck by the incredible attention to detail and dedication to design that characterizes these spaces in Japan,” says Prost.
You can support the book on Kickstarter until January 10 and stay informed by following Prost Instagram. Discover all his projects, including more books, on his website.
