Minato-Ku,Tokyo
Jun Aoki & Associates

Jun Aoki coifs the ceiling with luminous curls at XEL-ha, a new beauty salon in Tokyo’s high-fashion district

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At beauty parlors around the globe, scissors-wielding stylists routinely scatter shorn locks over the floor. But at Xel-Ha, a Tokyo salon designed by architect Jun Aoki, even the ceiling is strewn with curls. Combining a finish with a lighting system, Aoki covered the entire 2,336-square-foot surface with swirling sheets of plastic-laminated washi, a bleached-wood pulp paper, commonly used for lampshades in Japan. Each well-coiffed curl spirals loosely and eccentrically around a ball-shaped, 13-watt fluorescent lamp. “For the consumer, a visit to a hair salon is sometimes a special event,” says Aoki. “A salon must be a little bit theatrical, plus a little bit cozy.” Xel-Ha’s dramatic cover is gentle on the eye but as head turning as a perfectly sculpted bouffant.

The decision to highlight the ceiling came in response to practical and aesthetic concerns. While the client, an established stylist, requested nondirectional, even lighting, the ceiling was one of the few places—amid sinks, brushes, and blow-dryers—where Aoki could leave his mark. After all, when customers lean back for hair washing, they often gaze upward (though in most salons, the vista is unremarkable). And to passersby on the street, the space—topping a three-story commercial building in Tokyo’s Omotesando fashion district—reveals little more than its ceiling.

As realized, that lofty surface becomes most luminous and visible to pedestrians at night, during the salon’s evening hours and training sessions for budding barbers and beauticians. But even during the day, the ceiling’s articulated contours are in full view from the curving, car-free passageway that divides the structure’s base into an L-shaped block for high-end retail and a freestanding corner boutique for Cartier. The building, by architect Jun Mitsui, is a 2005 addition to the quarter’s retail landmarks, which include Aoki’s Vuitton flagship, just down the street, and Herzog & de Meuron’s Prada “epicenter” [RECORD, October 2003, page 92] next door.

From the cobbled pedestrian way, a glass-enclosed elevator leads directly up to Xel-Ha. The elevator opens onto the 3,746-square-foot salon, a single factorylike space divided into an open haircutting zone, to the left, and a secluded spa zone, to the right. For privacy and tranquility, the spa required a warren of treatment rooms behind full walls and doors. While hairstyling and spa areas needed clear separation, Aoki tied them together with a uniform material palette of dark brown surfaces, contrasting markedly with the ethereal white ceiling.

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