Hamburg’s cemeteries have jointly developed an online store for purchasing gravesites. This allows interested individuals to conveniently browse the wide variety of options from the comfort of their own homes on their computers.

Especially in these times, when direct contact must be avoided, the importance of online services is increasing significantly—particularly those that eliminate the need for in-person visits. Hamburger Friedhöfe has now developed a shop for purchasing graves online. The shop offers 13 different themed burial plots at Ohlsdorf Cemetery—ranging from the wildflower garden to the Ohlsdorf Forest of Peace to the crypt.

This allows interested individuals to conveniently browse the variety of options from the comfort of their own home on a computer. Photo galleries and videos showcase the beauty of the sites. People can also view the sites and seek advice with family members or friends, even from a distance. This can provide inspiration to many who have previously been reluctant to address the topic.

Of course, it is still possible to visit the facilities at Ohlsdorf Cemetery in person. A digital map is provided for each burial plot, making it easier to locate them within the cemetery. Prices are also listed. The burial plots are offered as part of pre-need planning. This means that anyone who purchases a burial plot pays the price in effect today, regardless of when they use it. Upon purchase, the plot is reserved for an unlimited period. From the time of death, it may then be used for 25 years. However, all options can also be purchased in the event of a specific death.

You can find more information here.

In the “Andaz Hotel” on the top floors of the second highest tower in Tokyo, the view is the main attraction. Despite the owners, an American hotel chain, the decor focuses on local color.

The view over Tokyo’s sea of buildings is familiar from the movie “Lost in Translation”. The view is also the main attraction at the Andaz Hotel on the top floors of the city’s second-highest tower. Despite the owners, an American hotel chain, the décor focuses on local color.

The topographically highest point in Tokyo, Atago Mountain, measures exactly 26 meters. In the past, this height was enough to see as far as Tokyo Bay – today, however, high-rise buildings obscure the view from the elevation on which the Atago Shrine has been attracting worshippers since 1603.

One of the newest towers in the city is the “Toranomon Hills Tower” by Nihon Sekkei Architects: 52 storeys high, it stretches into the sky, its floor plan reminiscent of a rhombus with partly rounded and partly chamfered corners. At 235 meters, Tokyo’s highest wedding chapel nestles triangularly under the sloping, triangular roof.

However, the tower cannot lay claim to the superlative “tallest building”, as the “Tokyo Midtown Tower”, which was completed in 2007, towers 13 meters above the Toranomon Hills Tower. However, static or structural problems were not the reason for the unbroken height record: the high-rise is so close to the Imperial Palace that additional storeys would have disturbed the privacy of the imperial family and were not approved.

But even without looking into the royals’ gardens and chambers, the view from the top six floors of the “Andaz Tokyo Toranomon Hills” hotel is hard to beat. New York designer Toni Chi and Tokyo-born interior designer Shinichiro Ogata have therefore focused the hotel rooms, which are at least 50 square meters in size by Japanese standards, entirely on the view: From the bed, from the sofa and from the desk, the view falls down to the city through the completely glazed front.

But it would be a shame not to take a look at the rooms too; the walls are clad in off-white panels covered with traditional shoji paper and set off with dark Hokkaido walnut wood, while sliding wooden walls transform the hallway into a dressing room in an ingenious and space-saving way.

Local materials and quotes from Japanese architecture and art history were also used in the elevators, lobby, spa and restaurant and interpreted in a contemporary way. The boutique hotel brand Andaz, which has opened its 12th hotel worldwide and its first in Japan with the Andaz Tokyo, places great value on authenticity: while Marcel Wanders designed the Andaz Amsterdam, for example, the Andaz Tokyo promises “Japanese experiences” for guests and locals.

The ambitious concept tolerates the inevitable breaks inherent in the term authenticity per se: the so-called Kumiko mural, puzzled together from thousands of wooden pieces, fits just as well into the almost six-metre-high hotel lobby on the 51st floor as electric light into the historic Atago shrine.

Address

Andaz Tokyo
Toranomon Hills 3-20-16-2F Nishi-Azabu Minato-ku
Tokyo 106-0031 Japan
Tel.+81 3 6830 1234, Fax.+81 3 6830 1211
www.andaztokyo.com