Setouchi Retreat by architect Tadao Ando, Seto Inland Sea, Japan

This masterwork by a legendary minimalist architect Tadao Ando draws light and air into vast spaces, evoking the infinity of traditional Zen poetics.

Situated in the verdant Matsuyama area of Japan, overlooking the Seto Inland Sea, the structure was initially built 20 years ago as a private guesthouse. The residence was then converted into a small modern art museum before reopening as Setouchi Retreat by Onko Chishin—all under Tadao Ando’s supervision.

This is a place of sublime minimalist luxury, where the unnecessary is stripped away.

Perfectly complementing Ando’s “smooth-as-silk” concrete walls, museum-quality artwork abounds at the hotel. Here, a painting by Frank Stella—one of the leading figures of the postwar minimalist and abstract movements—crowns the hotel’s dining room. Guests also discover a large-scale work by calligrapher/visual artist Rieko Kawabe, whose practice is rooted in Japanese aesthetic traditions.