When pharmaceutical heir Jonas Siaulys decided at the last minute to stop a shopping mall project and build a Boutique Hotel instead, his architect Ruy Ohtake delivered new sketches within 48 hours…
“I think he realized that the possibilities for a hotel were greater than for a mall,” says Siaulys. “And he knew that we’d give him creative freedom.”
Born in 1938, “Master” Ohtake , as colleagues call him, is anything but shy. He stands as the intellectual successor tropical modernism of Oscara Niemeyer and Le Corbusier, and a São Paulo school of architecture that favored function of the well organized city, in mid-20th century economic surge. Citing examples of his own work over the last 10 years, including the São Paulo branch of the Renaissance hotel chain and the Tomie Ohtake Institute, Ohtake admits that he wants to help bestow São Paulo with a distinctive visual legacy.
The Unique, member of Design HotelsTM, emerged as a logical step in this quest of his. Some observers believe it to be part of the quest first and a hotel second. “The Unique is a hotel by accident,” says Heloisa Proença, a former municipal planning secretary. “More than anything, it is Ruy’s building.” Some critics ridiculed the wasted space at either side of the bottom of the arc, suggesting that the curved form reduces profitability by allowing cool breezes to pass for free where guests could otherwise pay to be sleeping.
But the municipal building code only allows for constructed space only twice the size of the real estate… The curved structure respects that limit, while allowing for 30 rooms with better views on the top 6th floor, compared to just six on the panorama-challenged first. “I’m sure he saw the form first,” Siaulys admits. “But it was perfect.”
Dark glass and a desert mini garden, sandy-coloured cubes of rock, palms and agaves are the first impressions that the hotel offers. A kind of urban artwork, a sculpture of modern architecture and overall originality designed by Ruy Ohtake and João Armentano, certainly make the Unique one of a kind. Copper plates adorn the façade that stretches across the unusual shape of the building, a large inverted arch with circular windows.
Located in the well-heeled residential area of Jardins in Sao Paulo, the alluring building rises like a big ship from a sea of concrete and asphalt. The reception area and nearby bar The Wall, are both lit by a huge wall of transparent glass during the day and at night are indirectly illuminated by walls of beige marble.
Dramatic, 25 meter high hollows and corridors in the interior, define the curved design that is continued inside the rooms, where there are no right angles at all. A massive bed stitched from dozens of velvet pipes that shimmers in purple, dark blue and green, placed right in the middle of the guestrooms ensures guests that the hotel stays true to its name in the private areas as well.
A carefully choreographed spectrum of circles and squares, ellipses and curves interleave, creating the design language of the Unique, softened by wooden flooring, sleek white furnishings and glass tables. Unusual accessories picked up from around the globe underline the concept even further. The rooms, a blend of hi-tech details and natural elements, are a study in ultra-cool modernism.
Unique is definitely a exceptional experience in Sao Paulo, a truly distinctive and special city...
Address: Avenida Brigadeiro Luis Antonio, São Paulo, Brazil
ARCHITECT: Ruy Ohtake
INTERIOR DESIGN: João Armentano
