The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment on identity: If a wooden ship is ever so gradually repaired by replacing each plank and each thread in its sails, is there a point where the new materials constituting the ship comprise a new ship in and of itself? Or does identity consist of more than the sum of physical components?
In some ways, the newly renovated Park Hyatt Tokyo is a hotel of Theseus. On Dec. 9, the property reopened after the completion of a 19-month “restoration,” as Hyatt describes it. The communal spaces, fitness facilities, restaurants and guest rooms were all stripped away down to the concrete skeleton of the Shinjuku Park Tower before being built back up — in some cases, exactly as they were before.
No one would claim that this constitutes a new hotel as the Ship of Theseus scenario might suggest. But given the anxiety expressed by longtime guests when the lengthy renovation was first announced — an admission that there was something about the Park Hyatt Tokyo’s identity, its soul, that was at risk of vanishing in the dust of construction — it’s worth facing the question head-on.
AloJapan.com