This French photographer went to Japan in search of the most surreal “love hotels”. And found them

François Prost traveled more than 3 thousand kilometers and photographed around 200 hotels with short-stay rates. These “love” businesses began to spring up in abundance after Japan outlawed prostitution in 1958, a move that closed brothels and pushed the industry into alternative facilities.

Last year, the French photographer spent hours browsing Google Maps to plan a road trip to document the country’s “love hotels” — establishments across the country that offer hourly rates and, most importantly for guests, privacy. But when he embarked on his 3,000-kilometer (1,864-mile) journey, it was impossible not to encounter them.

While some featured heart- or lip-themed signage (or names like Hotel Passion, Hotel Joy, or Hotel BabyKiss, to use a few examples from your trip), the hotels were more easily identified by playful architecture that, counterintuitively, is far from to be discreet.

“We can see spaceships, boats and also a big whale, which is in a way very childish,” explains Prost in a Zoom interview from France. “And many, many of them are castles,” he added of the facades of the nearly 200 love hotels captured in his new photo series.

While guests can rent rooms by the night, Japan’s love hotels also offer short-term rates for “kyukei” or “rest.” They grew after the country outlawed prostitution in 1958, a move that closed brothels and pushed the industry into alternative facilities.

Nowadays, rather than being associated with sex work or infidelity, they are mostly attended by couples living in small or shared family homes.

“Of course there is some prostitution, but it is mainly people – especially young people and young couples – who go there for privacy,” says Prost. Its loop route passed through Honshu and Shikoku (the largest and smallest of Japan’s four main islands, respectively) before returning to the capital, Tokyo.

“And these days, they’re not just for sex. They also turned more towards leisure, such as karaoke night clubs.”

Unique architectural tradition

Accommodations with hidden entrances date back centuries in Japan, although a more immediate precursor to modern love hotels is the post-war “tsurekomi yado” (or “bring-your-own inn”), which were often run by families. with rooms to spare.

The type of distinctive architecture that Prost documented, however, emerged in the 1960s and 1970s as establishments became more sophisticated. Passers-by needed to know the function of the buildings at a glance, and owners wanted to differentiate their businesses from normal hotels.

One of the most famous love hotels of the 1970s, Meguro Emperor, was designed to resemble a European castle. It sparked a wave of castle-themed hotels, dozens of which appear in Prost’s new series. Elsewhere, he found buildings inspired by French country houses, tropical beach clubs and – in the case of the Aladdin Hotel in Okayama – a grand Arabian palace with onion-shaped domes.

Despite their somewhat gaudy appearance, the hotels’ design reflects their function. For privacy reasons, exteriors often feature few windows, or even false windows. Many of the hotels use self-service check-ins and other design features that reduce the possibility of unwanted encounters.

“Everything is planned to ensure that you won’t pass anyone when you enter the building,” says Prost. “So, the entrance is different from the exit, and there may be an elevator to go up (to the rooms) and another to go down. This is all part of the design process.”

The kind of peculiar architecture that Prost encountered became less common in the nineties. On the one hand, hotels began to market themselves to women, who were increasingly the decision-making partner. But legislation passed in the mid-1980s also placed love hotels under the jurisdiction of police, meaning that newer establishments have often sought more subtle designs to avoid being classified as such. (Having a lobby or restaurant and or large mirrors were other ways to get around legal classification).

As a result, it’s difficult to say exactly how many love hotels are still operating in Japan, although there are thought to be more than 20,000. There is also no data on usage, although frequently cited hotel industry figures from the late 1990s suggest that couples made around 500 million annual trips to such establishments. If true, that would mean that about half of all sex in Japan occurred in love hotels in those years, legal scholar Mark D. West wrote in his 2005 book “Law in Everyday Japan.”

Lens over Japan

Love hotels are also relatively common in Asian countries, including South Korea and Thailand, while short-stay hotels or motels in other parts of the world often serve a similar social function. But the term remains most associated with Japan, despite some industry attempts to rebrand them as “leisure” or “fashion” hotels to avoid the negative connotations of the original name.

Prost believes the establishments (and their photographs) highlight a contrast between Japan’s social conservatism and people’s attitudes toward sex. He described the unusual designs as a kind of modern vernacular – everyday architecture that “says more about the country” than famous historic buildings.

With the help of a newly released book, he hopes to publish the images in a book next year. It’s an approach that has been successful in the past: Prost’s most recent book, “Gentlemen’s Club,” took him more than 6,000 miles (about 9,700 kilometers) around the United States photographing the colorful architecture of the country, was published through crowdfunding in 2021.

He also documented nightclub facades in France, Spain and Ivory Coast. In addition to exploring addiction and society out of turn, these projects have a common thread: they do not just refer to the establishments, but to the country and culture in which they are located.

“I would say these projects are more similar to landscape photography,” he said. “They show the country through the prism of these places.”