Concept

Perched into the hillside at the south-western edge of Fujinomiya, EXP._Teahouse is a building that refuses to choose a century — and is more interesting for it. Commissioned in post-war 1960s Japan by an industrialist, the structure was designed by a Tokyo architect as a modernist statement: a brutalist concrete shell wrapping around warm tatami rooms, raw exterior meeting classical interior in a dialogue that was radical then and remains rare now. The tearoom at its heart — traditionally a space of ritual stillness — sits inside a brutalist shell, as if the past is being deliberately preserved inside the future. From its elevated position, the building commands what may be Fujinomiya's most uninterrupted direct view of Mt. Fuji — no wires, no rooftops, nothing between you and the mountain. EXP. takes the original spirit — a space for gathering, contemplation, and quiet ceremony — and evolves it. Fine dining, creative residencies, and intimate events now inhabit the same rooms where tea was once poured in silence. The building had a story before we arrived. We're simply the next chapter.

Process