Kyoto Station

In 1997, a little over 1,200 years after the city was founded, Kyoto got a grand new station, just a few blocks away from the site of Rashomon, the original entrance gate to the city. Architect Hiroshi Hara’s creation is futuristic and rugged; in other words, the antithesis of Kyoto. The protests have subsided as Kyoto-ites have learned to live with, or love, this steel-and-glass giant, with a theatre, hotel and department store.