Fantasy castles, imaginary animals, giant liners… In Japan, rabuhos (Love Hotels) pull out all the stops to arouse desire. Their architectural fantasy is limitless, both in its shapes and in its colors. A tradition of the Archipelago, these establishments of a very particular type which catch the eye of motorists along the roadsides number in the tens of thousands and record more than five hundred million reservations per year. These love hotels that certain countries in Asia and Latin America have happily copied offer rooms for an hour or two, or even for a whole night, to couples who wish to indulge in their lovemaking without fear of hearing loss. prying eyes.
Rabuhos are the solution that the country has found to remedy the disadvantages of family promiscuity and urban density, conducive to intrusive reflexes, not to mention espionage. It was through a combination of circumstances that François Prost discovered and immortalized them. Invited to Tokyo in 2023 by the Agnès b. gallery, which exhibited “Gentlemen’s club”, his series on the facades of strip clubs in the United States, the Parisian photographer of Lyon origin was offered to carry out a new project on site.
He chose the theme of Love Hotels to satisfy two passions: kitsch architecture and inventories of fronts of festive places. This last subject led him to explore buildings housing nightclubs in France between 2011 and 2021 (« After Party”), in Spain (“Discoteca”, 2020) or in Ivory Coast (“Club Ivoire”, 2023), as well as the disturbing replicas, in China, of Parisian buildings and monuments (“Paris Syndrome”, 2017 ).
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