Not a Hotel to Open Not a Museum in Tokyo Building Awaiting Demolition

Not a Hotel parent Nota will open Not a Museum with Tokyo collective SKWAT inside Imperial Hotel Plaza, a 2,000-square-metre building awaiting demolition, from summer 2027 to 2031.

Section: Urbanism & Planning
Author: By Marcus Bennett
Filed: October 12, 2026
Length: 2 min read

Key takeaways

Not a Museum will open in Imperial Hotel Plaza Tokyo, a 2,000-square-metre commercial centre set for demolition.
Nota will occupy floors one to four for four years, from summer 2027 to 2031.
The building's demolition was delayed due to rising construction costs.
Not a City and SKWAT, led by Daikei Mills founder Keisuke Nakamura, will design and manage the space.
Not a City is also behind Japa Valley Tokyo, a district designed by Pharrell Williams and Nigo opening in 2027.

Nota, the company behind hotelier Not a Hotel, will open its first cultural space, Not a Museum, inside a Tokyo commercial centre that is scheduled for demolition.

The mixed-use space will occupy the Imperial Hotel Plaza Tokyo, a 2,000-square-metre commercial centre that will be torn down as part of the reconstruction of the Imperial Hotel Tokyo tower.

What will Not a Museum be?

Nota will take over the building's first floor through the fourth floor for four years, from summer 2027 to 2031, ahead of demolition. The teardown has been delayed due to an increase in construction costs.

Its Not a City subsidiary will design Not a Museum together with SKWAT, a Tokyo cultural collective that runs the SKWAT Kameari Art Centre. SKWAT is led by founder Keisuke Nakamura of design firm Daikei Mills.

Together, Not a City and SKWAT will handle everything from planning to management over the four years the space operates.

"It will serve as an experimental platform for the future, where cutting-edge culture across art, music, books, cinema, fashion, and more comes together, is tested, and continues to evolve," Not a City and SKWAT said.

Why a building slated for demolition?

Not a City intends to take advantage of unused spaces in Tokyo, where buildings are often demolished — rather than adapted and reused — to make way for new developments.

The company is also behind Japa Valley Tokyo, a new commercial district set to open in 2027 in the yet-to-be-built Yurakucho Park. Mitsubishi Estate is developing the area on a site left empty after the demolition of two 1960s buildings.

Producer Pharrell Williams and fashion designer Nigo, who joined Nota as creative advisors last year, will design that district.

SKWAT has previously hosted exhibitions by designer Kwangho Lee and by architects Herzog & de Meuron.

Not a Museum's four-year run will test whether Tokyo's demolition pipeline can double as a stock of temporary cultural venues — a model Not a City could replicate as further buildings across the city await redevelopment.

Original: nota.com

adaptive-reuse tokyo cultural-spaces temporary-architecture demolition