Given the location of their hotel (halfway between the city and the airport), the owners knew they had to do something special – to build a self-contained world so innovative and luxurious that you’d never want to leave. Their idea? Give 22 of architecture’s most creative names (eg Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster, Ron Arad, David Chipperfield, Jean Nouvel) a floor each to design.
The result is an extravagant pastiche of styles, from zany montages of 1980s chic to bright-red bathrooms that feel like a movie star’s dressing room. Even the bar (‘a temple to the liturgy of pleasure’), restaurant, facade, gardens, public lighting and car park had their own architects. It’s an extraordinary, astonishing place.
