Hotel Unique

A slice of watermelon, a ship's hull, an arch turned on its head: São Paulo has several names for the building Ruy Ohtake set down on Avenida Brigadeiro Luís Antônio in 2002. Hotel Unique, the luxury hotel in São Paulo inside it, has 95 rooms behind porthole windows and a red rooftop pool that has become the city's best-known hotel photograph.

History

Ruy Ohtake (1938-2021), the Japanese-Brazilian architect and son of the painter Tomie Ohtake, designed the hotel for the businessman Jonas Siaulys, who wanted a building that would be a landmark before it was a hotel. It opened in 2002, a year after Ohtake's Instituto Tomie Ohtake in Pinheiros, and the two buildings fixed his reputation for curved forms and strong colour in a city of concrete grids. Ohtake went on to design social housing in Heliópolis and the city's Hotel Renaissance, but Unique stayed the building visitors asked him about.

Architecture and design

The building is a flat-topped arc whose curved underside leaves both ends hanging clear of the ground, so that the structure appears to balance on its middle. The exterior is clad in copper plates that have weathered since 2002, and the round windows, 1.8 metres across, are the one motif repeated on every face. Inside, the lobby is a tall hall with a long bar and the curve of the hull exposed overhead; the interiors were designed by João Armentano in wood, glass and leather with little ornament. The rooms at the two ends of the arc have floors that follow the curve, and their sloping surfaces are the hotel's most photographed oddity after the pool.

Rooms and suites

The 95 rooms and suites run along a single curved corridor on each floor. Every room has at least one of the round windows, with a deep sill that doubles as a seat; the suites face Ibirapuera Park. Furniture is low and simple, the palette white, grey and wood, and the bathrooms are glazed towards the room.

Dining

Skye, the rooftop restaurant and bar, runs the length of the roof with a terrace and the red-tiled pool beside it; the view takes in Ibirapuera Park below and the towers along the Paulista ridge beyond. The menu is contemporary with Brazilian produce and Japanese touches, and sunset is the busy hour, when the pool is lit from below and the bar fills with people who are not staying in the hotel.

Wellness

A spa with treatment rooms and a gym occupy the lower floors; the rooftop pool is heated and reserved for guests by day before the bar takes over the terrace in the evening.

Weddings and events

The hotel hosts weddings, product launches and meetings; its function rooms are on the lower levels and the roof is used for receptions when the weather allows. Fashion and car brands have used the building as a set because the architecture does the work of decoration.

Location

Avenida Brigadeiro Luís Antônio 4700 lies at the southern edge of Jardins where the avenue meets Ibirapuera Park, the gates of which are across the road. Avenida Paulista is about 2 kilometres north and Brigadeiro station on metro Line 2, on Paulista, is the nearest underground stop. Congonhas airport is about 8 kilometres south and Guarulhos international about 35 kilometres to the north-east.