Relative to its size, Latin America remains one of the great untapped markets for luxury hotel companies, with only a handful of significant openings each year across the vast continent. What it lacks in quantity it tends to make up for in quality and vision, as evidenced by the soon-to-open Rosewood São Paulo in Brazil.
Set at the heart of Cidade Matarazzo, an urban regeneration project breathing new life into what was once the Matarazzo Hospital and its grounds, Rosewood São Paulo is the result of a collaboration between two titans in the world of hotel architecture and design: Jean Nouvel and Philippe Stark.
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel has envisaged a vertical garden to form the focal point of Cidade Matarazzo and the home of Rosewood São Paulo: a 100-metre tower whose exterior forms an interconnected wooden lattice strewn with greenery, extending the surrounding park and gardens high up into the air. Inside, legendary French designer Philippe Starck is working on the 151 guestrooms and 114 residences, as well as two restaurants – one situated on a veranda overlooking the gardens – a bar and caviar lounge, Rosewood Spa and a recording studio and screening room. Swimming pools in the gardens below and on top of the tower will give guests and residents the choice of sky-high or down-to-earth bathing when the hotel opens in June 2021.
Set along Avenida Paulista, the artery running through the heart of São Paulo, the 50,000-sqm estate’s 20th-century buildings will be transformed into private residences, artisan stores and various exhibition, gallery and performing arts spaces, creating a new urban enclave and cultural destination filled with more than 10,000 native Brazilian trees.
