Love Hotel

LOVE HOTEL is a photographic series by François Prost that captures the distinctive facades of Japanese love hotels—iconic, often surreal buildings that sit quietly along roadsides and city edges. Shot during a 2023 road trip from Tokyo to Shikoku Island, the project offers a unique look at Japan’s built environment, one rarely seen in conventional travel imagery.

Rather than focusing on tourist landmarks or cultural clichés, Prost turns his lens toward the country’s more obscure and everyday architecture. The result is a vernacular portrait of Japan: a landscape of faded signage, bold graphics, pastel colors, and eccentric design. These facades, with their kitschy charm and quiet decay, reveal layers of social history and fantasy, all tucked away in unassuming places.