Rosewood São Paulo

The Matarazzo family, Italian industrialists led by Francesco Matarazzo, who arrived from the province of Salerno in 1881 and built the largest business empire in Brazil, opened a maternity hospital on Rua Itapeva in 1904. It closed in 1993 and stood empty for most of two decades on the edge of Avenida Paulista. On 12 January 2022 the restored hospital and a new tower beside it opened as Rosewood São Paulo, the brand's first hotel in South America and the centre of a development called Cidade Matarazzo.

History

The hospital complex, listed as heritage by the city and the state, was bought by the French developer Alexandre Allard in 2011. His plan for Cidade Matarazzo kept the hospital buildings and the 1922 chapel of Santa Luzia, added a hotel tower and a residential tower, and placed shops, offices and a theatre around them. Rosewood signed on as the hotel operator, and the opening came after more than a decade of restoration and construction.

Architecture and design

Two names carry the project. Jean Nouvel designed the new Mata Atlântica tower, a tall timber-framed block whose terraces are planted with native trees of the Atlantic forest so that the building reads as a vertical garden rising above the old hospital. Philippe Starck designed the interiors of both the tower and the restored hospital, filling them with commissioned work by Brazilian artists rather than the imported furniture of his earlier hotels; the hotel commissioned several hundred pieces from local painters, sculptors and craftsmen for the rooms and public spaces. The restored hospital wards hold the lower-rise rooms, and the chapel of Santa Luzia stands in the gardens between the buildings.

Rooms and suites

The rooms and suites are divided between the heritage hospital wings and the Nouvel tower, with the tower suites opening onto planted terraces. Starck's rooms use Brazilian hardwoods and local textiles, with art in every room drawn from the commissioned collection.

Dining

Taraz is the main restaurant, serving Brazilian cooking in the old hospital building. Blaise, the bar named for the Swiss-French writer Blaise Cendrars, who travelled with the São Paulo modernists in the 1920s, occupies a panelled room with a terrace. Rabo di Galo is the cocktail bar, and Le Jardin serves breakfast and lunch in the garden beside the chapel.

Wellness

Asaya, Rosewood's wellness brand, has a spa with treatment rooms, a gym and a pool in the tower, with a further rooftop pool among the trees of the terraces.

Weddings and events

The hotel has a ballroom and meeting rooms within the complex, and the chapel of Santa Luzia, restored with the rest of the site, is used for wedding ceremonies, with receptions in the gardens and the hotel's function rooms. Corporate events use the meeting floor and the restaurant private rooms, and the Cidade Matarazzo theatre adds a larger auditorium beside the hotel.

Location

Rua Itapeva runs off Avenida Paulista in the Bela Vista district, so the hotel sits a block from the city's main business avenue and the MASP museum. Trianon-Masp metro station on the green line is the closest stop. Congonhas Airport, the domestic airport, is about 25 minutes by car; Guarulhos International is about 45 minutes outside peak traffic. It is the only luxury hotel in São Paulo built inside a listed historic complex rather than a new tower alone.