How a Secluded Japanese Museum Pioneered the ‘Art Hotel’

From an unassuming port in Uno, about 50 minutes by train from Okayama, a $3 hourly ferry delivers travelers to and from Miyanoura on the tiny Japanese island of Naoshima. A giant, yellow-and-black spotted pumpkin sculpture by Yayoi Kusama welcomes travelers as they disembark onto the artistic world that awaits, centered around Benesse House Museum.

Here, on a quiet hillside overlooking the Seto Inland Sea, guests don’t just sleep in rooms adorned with art—they inhabit a museum. As night falls and day-trippers depart, hotel guests gain exclusive after-hours access to galleries housing works by artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Walter De Maria.

Benesse House Museum, which opened in 1992, is the antithesis of luxury hotels, where opulence often manifests as excess: pillow menus, infinity pools, and a sprawling spa promising transformation. Here, austere elegance defines luxury—no TVs in rooms, no gym, not even a swimming pool. Its website explicitly states that it is “a hotel built to think over art, nature, architecture, and oneself.” This pioneering concept has spawned a global movement of art hotels that have transformed luxury accommodations worldwide.

How Benesse House Changed Naoshima

Before Benesse House opened, Naoshima was known primarily for copper smelting, fishing, and salt production—an unlikely setting for the intersection of art, hospitality, and architectural innovation.

That vision emerged from the overlapping ideas of two men: Tetsuhiko Fukutake, the founding president of Fukutake Publishing, whose goal was to create a cultural gathering place in the Seto Inland Sea; and Chikatsugu Miyake, then mayor of Naoshima, who envisioned developing the island as a cultural hub. During a meeting in 1985, the two men laid the groundwork for what would become Benesse House Museum.

Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando designed the hotel in his signature minimalist aesthetic, creating spaces where nature, architecture, and art co-exist. Large apertures open the interiors to the dazzling natural surroundings, with artworks displayed within the galleries, along the seashore, and in nearby forests.

The 65 guest rooms and suites are spread across four buildings throughout the island, boasting floor-to-ceiling windows, wood accents and furniture, along with concrete walls adorned with artwork from the museum’s collection.

As a result, guests experience art not as momentary passive observers, but as active participants in a 24-hour immersion, allowing them to see how a Richard Long installation or a Cy Twombly sculpture, for example, interacts with its environment at dawn, at midday, and by moonlight.

Japan proved a natural birthplace for the art hotel, influenced by the cultural concepts of ma (negative space) and wabi-sabi (the beauty of imperfection and impermanence). These philosophies manifest in Benesse House’s deliberate restraint—spaces designed for contemplation rather than excessive comfort and convenience.

Soon after its opening, Benesse House Museum transformed the entire island of Naoshima into an immersive art experience. Its artistic vision expanded further with the 1998 Art House Project, which converted vacant houses in Naoshima’s Honmura district into art installations. The Chichu Art Museum, also designed by Ando, opened in 2004 and houses works by Claude Monet and James Turrell in mostly underground galleries, preserving the island’s natural landscape.

Eventually, Fukutake and Miyake’s vision also expanded to neighboring islands, such as Teshima, where a droplet-shaped art museum was built among rice terraces, and Inujima, where an abandoned copper refinery was transformed into the Seirensho Art Museum. From a single museum-hotel, an entire archipelago has metamorphosed into a comprehensive art destination.

Best Art Hotels in the World

From South Africa to Brazil, hotels now market themselves as “art hotels,” though their approaches vary dramatically in both conception and execution.

The Silo in Cape Town opened in March 2017, a few months ahead of its downstairs neighbor, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), occupying the top six floors of a reimagined concrete grain silo. British designer Thomas Heatherwick transformed the industrial structure with enormous, convex geometric windows—56 panels of glass in each—that bulge outward like giant pillowed eyes, turning the building into a sculptural object visible across Cape Town’s waterfront.

All 28 guest rooms and suites are designed with co-owner Liz Biden’s pizzazz, featuring antiques, crystal chandeliers, and contemporary African art from Biden’s personal collection. Each accommodation comes with a guide to its artwork, establishing a common trait with the museum below. Standalone bathtubs sit at the base of the enormous windows, allowing guests to soak while taking in panoramic views of Table Mountain or the harbor.

In December 2024, Brazil’s Clara Arte Resort, a Travel + Leisure It List 2025 winner, opened inside Inhotim Institute in Minas Gerais. Inhotim, Latin America’s largest contemporary art museum, boasts 140 hectares and features approximately 1,862 works by more than 280 artists, displayed outdoors and in galleries situated within a botanical garden.

The hotel features 46 individual units laid out along paved pathways, with works of art adorning the public areas, and an informal art talk held every evening in the piano bar. Guests enjoy free entry to Inhotim, even when the museum is closed to the general public. A walkway leads them from the hotel through the woods and into the park, allowing for a seamless transition of hospitality and art.

Beyond Brazil and South Africa, this trend continues in Europe, too. In Greece, the Phaea Blue Palace has partnered with the Benaki Museum in a groundbreaking collaboration, with Stella Lizardi curating the lobby using pieces from the Benaki Foundation, marking the museum’s first hotel partnership. Similarly, in Lisbon, the Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando Martins (MACAM) Hotel converted a historic palace into a gallery/hotel, featuring carefully curated works from the MACAM throughout its 64 rooms, corridors, and common areas.

Lastly, in New York City, the Climate Museum Tower, slated for completion by 2029, will combine exhibitions focused on climate change with hospitality spaces designed to encourage longer, more contemplative engagement with urgent environmental themes.

The popularity of the art hotel concept indicates a shift in tourism, where a subset of hotels seeks to offer more purposeful, and not just aesthetic, experiences. According to Skift Research’s luxury traveler report, affluent travelers are increasingly trading traditional luxury for cultural experiences, with 52 percent citing authentic cultural immersion as their key travel motivator.

That’s why the principles pioneered at Benesse House Museum—integration with landscape and architecture as art—will continue to remain relevant and inform hospitality developments worldwide.