Bvlgari Hotel Tokyo

Between the two, drawings from the Bvlgari archive line the ground floor lobby, among them a brooch of Mount Fuji the Roman house made in 1970 and took the hotel's symbol from. On the 40th, a corridor in Bisazza mosaic, patterned after a Japanese textile, runs out to the east and west wings, elm portals breaking the tall space into arches shaped like the firelight windows of a Zen temple. An eight-point star is inlaid in the marble at the centre of the entrance vestibule.

Ninety-eight rooms and suites sit above, each behind glass that runs floor to ceiling, and the twenty Premium rooms take in the Imperial Palace Gardens and the red brick of Tokyo Station. Walls are silk and elm boiserie, the bedspread comes from Hosoo in Kyoto and the dark oak from Ritzwell in Fukuoka. Behind a sliding door, the shower and the soaking tub are matte black Japanese granite. The eight corner suites carry a ceiling of hand-brushed matte gold, and the Bvlgari Suite runs past 400 square metres on the 44th. It is among the largest in Tokyo.

The top floor opens onto terraces, Italian lemon trees along one and Japanese yuzu along the other, with Tokyo Tower in view from them and Mount Fuji on a clear day. The tea stocked in the rooms is grown in Ureshino, in Saga. A suitcase gets packed and unpacked on request, and a barber, a tailor or a Berluti shoeshine can be arranged. Rome is the frame here. Tokyo is the view.