Expected to open in 2018, the 40-floor-high is City of Dreams’ fifth hotel tower, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) and is meant to become one of the most iconic buildings in Macau. It’s something new for the city and expected to greatly contribute to the development of local tourism through the improvement of its cultural and visual landscape, as referred by the current chairman and CEO of Melco Crown Entertainment, Mr. Lawrence Ho.
The gross floor area of the building is of approximately 150,000 square meters, which are expected to house around 780 guest-rooms, suites and sky villas, amongst a huge variety of meeting and event facilities, gaming rooms, lobby atrium, restaurants, spa, and sky pool. This list of offers is already a mark in Macau Hotels, but in this particular case, the extensive back of house areas and supporting ancillary facilities are incorporated within the hotel as a single cohesive envelope.
“The design combines dramatic public spaces and generous guest rooms with innovative engineering and formal cohesion. The rectangular outline of the site is extruded as a monolithic block with a series of voids which carve through the centre of the tower, merging traditional architectural elements of roof, wall and ceiling to create a sculptural form that defines many of the hotel’s internal public spaces”, is explained on her website.
Hadid who passed away on 31st March 2016 at the age of 65, left behind an unmistakable “curved identity” in the world of architecture. An Iraqi-born British architect, her achievements are vast and ground-breaking. She was able to gain undeniable, international recognition and reputation throughout the years, achieving one of her career highlights in 2004 when she was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, making her the first woman to receive what is considered the Nobel Price of Architecture. She was also awarded the Stirling Prizes in 2010 and 2011, she was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2012 and in 2015 she became the first woman to be awarded the RIBA Gold Medal.
As referred in Zaha Hadid’s website, “Hadid liberated architectural geometry with the creation of highly expressive, sweeping fluid forms of multiple perspective points and fragmented geometry that evoke the chaos and flux of modern life. A pioneer of parametricism, and an icon of neo-futurism, with a formidable personality, her acclaimed work and ground-breaking forms include the Vitra Fire Station (Germany), the Broad Art Museum (U.S.), and the Guangzhou Opera House (China)”. Her artistic legacy includes the Galaxy SOHO building in Beijing completed in 2012, the Jockey Club Innovation Tower, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University building completed in 2014, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, South Korea, a major urban development landmark completed in 2014, amongst many others.
ZAHA has 36 ongoing projects around the world, some of them are already under construction and others are fully designed. In Asian region these projects include the new Beijing Airport Terminal Building in Daxing, China, the Sleuk Rith Institute in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the Danjiang Bridge in Taipei, Taiwan.
City of Dreams Estrada Do Istmo, +853 8868 6688
For any inquiries about interior design or fit-out works, don’t hesitate to contact Rui Barbosa:
KPM Project Management Ltd. 14-02 Si Toi Commercial Bldg, 619 Av da Praia Grande, Macau, +853 6675 2499; [email protected]
*All views expressed are the author’s alone
