🇯🇵Japan·Visits suspended

Chapel on Mount Rokkō (風の教会)

Mount Rokkō, Kobe (Hyōgo)

Sources checked October 2026

“A 40 m passage lined with frosted glass leads to a small bare-concrete chapel whose large windows open onto the greenery of Mount Rokkō.”

Year: 1986
Architect: Tadao Ando
Type: Wedding chapel
Access: Regular visits suspended; open to the public during the Kobe Rokko Meets Art festival, from summer to autumn (official website, October 2026)

Tadao Ando built this bare-concrete chapel in 1986 on Mount Rokkō in Kobe for the wedding guests of the former Rokko Oriental Hotel. A 40 m passage whose colonnade is fitted with frosted glass leads to it, and the door opens onto a hall with large windows full of greenery, where the cross is a reinforced-concrete frame. It now serves for weddings; regular visits are suspended, but it opens to the public during the Kobe Rokko Meets Art festival.

Directions

In depth ≈ 2 min read

History

Tadao Ando built this chapel in 1986 for the Rokko Oriental Hotel (六甲オリエンタルホテル), which had opened in 1934 on the mid-slopes of Mount Rokkō: it was the hotel's wedding chapel, in the hotel garden. Its name is 風の教会, "Chapel of the Wind"; after its location it is also called 六甲の教会, "church of Rokkō". With the Church on the Water in Shimukappu and the Church of the Light in Ibaraki, it counts among the three Ando churches known as the "church trilogy".

The hotel closed in 2007, and the chapel, which could until then be visited freely, was closed to the public. It reopened in 2015, for the first time in eight years, with the Kobe Rokko Meets Art (神戸六甲ミーツ・アート) festival, of which it became an exhibition venue. In 2017 a Kobe property group, Kenryu Management (建隆マネジメント), acquired the hotel and the chapel. The hotel buildings were demolished from the summer of 2017, the chapel was spared and then restored (renovation in 2018), and wedding bookings resumed in November 2020.

Architecture

The chapel is an exposed-concrete frame topped by a rectangular tower. It is reached by a passage 40 m long and 2.7 m wide, lined on each side by a colonnade fitted with frosted glass, which filters the light from the sky and gives it a soft, natural quality. Sénanque Abbey in Provence is believed to have influenced it.

The chapel door opens onto a small bare-concrete hall with large windows full of greenery. The cross is simple, made with a reinforced-concrete frame.

Use today

The chapel is used for weddings: ceremonies and wedding photo sessions.

During the Kobe Rokko Meets Art festival it becomes an exhibition venue: contemporary artworks are installed in it, as well as on the plaza that occupies the site of the former hotel.

Visiting

Outside the festival, the interior cannot be visited: the chapel no longer takes visits or requests for use, except for weddings. You can go in during Kobe Rokko Meets Art, from summer to autumn; entry to the chapel area is then paid, included in the festival pass.

Allow about 20 minutes on foot from the summit station of the Rokkō cable car (六甲ケーブル山上駅). During the festival, temporary buses run from that station; the nearest stop bears the chapel's name.