🇯🇵Japan·By request

Benesse House Oval (ベネッセハウスオーバル)

Naoshima, Kagawa Prefecture

Sources checked October 2026

“Only six rooms, on a hill reached by monorail from the museum, facing the Seto Inland Sea.”

Year: 1995
Architect: Tadao Ando
Type: Accommodation building of Benesse House, a museum-hotel
Access: Accommodation building reserved for its guests: no visit without a stay (official website, October 2026)

The Oval opened in July 1995, three years after the Benesse House Museum, the museum-hotel complex that Tadao Ando (安藤忠雄) designed on Naoshima. It stands on a hill reached by monorail from the museum and has just six rooms, whose large openings look out over the Seto Inland Sea. Only guests staying there are admitted.

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In depth ≈ 1 min read

History

Benesse House, a museum and hotel in one, opened on Naoshima in 1992. The Oval, an accommodation building designed by Tadao Ando (安藤忠雄), opened in July 1995.

Architecture

The Oval stands on a hill, linked to the museum by a monorail. Its six rooms open onto the Seto Inland Sea through large openings running from floor to ceiling; in some of them, artists drew on the walls themselves. Of the four Benesse House buildings, the Oval Twin rooms are the ones set highest.