Hotel G

Those with their fingers on the pulse of China’s capital know that Chaoyang district is the party place in Beijing. Only a short drive from the central business district, Sanlitun’s row of hopping bars and restaurants has been attracting buzz ever since musician-turned-celebrity chef JinR opened Green T House in 1997. This May, the latest addition to Gong Ti Xi Lu is Hong Kong-based developer Goodwin Gaw’s Hotel G, or Ji Zhan, Chinese for ultra luxurious.

Scoring big on the highly publicised success of the Roosevelt Hotel renovations in Hollywood – it was perfect timing that Academy Award-winning film Chicago held its post-Oscar bash at the Roosevelt shortly after the hotel opened for business – Gaw’s Gateway Capital has gone from strength to strength. Hotel G sets the standard for a proposed string of boutique hotels slated to open in key cities within China and the rest of Asia over the next decade. For his Beijing flagship property, Gaw enlisted the help of Taipei-based British architect Mark Lintott for the guestrooms, exterior upgrade, landscaping and 25 Degrees bar. As icing on the cake, Moroccan-based French Algerian designer Imaad Rahmouni worked his magic on Gilt, a split-level roof top restaurant with a Tibetan twist.

Gaw took over a 10,000m2 eight storey structure that was originally built to be serviced apartments with the intent of giving Beijing a new spin on retro chic.

“The brief was to renovate the existing building to produce a 110-room entertainment hotel,” says Lintott. “The hotel was conceived to attract the thinking / travelling / creative guest who would appreciate rooms that are slightly out of the ordinary and very much design driven. It is designed to be a luxurious hotel, but a luxury derived from experience rather than cost or material value. The schedule was very tight with the 2008 Olympics as a finite deadline.”

Known for injecting a sense of wow into entertainment and hospitality venues such as The Sherwood Hotel and Opium Den, Lintott spruced up the nondescript exterior with an aubergine coloured finish that made it pop within the context of the anonymously grey surroundings. By night, the façade transforms into a riot of coloured lights, with hotel guests allowed to select the hue of their own windows’ illumination. “The building itself was interesting to us as it had been built with a stressed slab structure, meaning there are no beams interrupting the main room floors,” explains Lintott. “[We had] the opportunity to retain areas of exposed concrete structure within the finished spaces, creating the raw but chic feel of the rooms.”

Although he had to live with the grid of the building’s former serviced apartment programme, Lintott worked to its advantage by exposing the structure and services areas for a raw industrial aesthetic. Rooms range from 45 to 80m2, with lots of natural light to give the space a cheerfully homey appeal. Simple yet excellent quality materials used in surprising ways became the subtext. For example, bare concrete stencilled with classical motifs on the guestroom walls provides a background for the coloured mirrored glass with raw slate in the bathrooms. “Texture and colour are extremely important,” notes Lintott. “We have tried to juxtapose contrasting and unexpected finishes and colours in a way that creates a rich sense of personality to the hotel.” The inclusion of commissioned contemporary art and photography enhanced the overall feeling of a private estate.

Within 25 Degrees, Lintott created a long red Murano glass-tiled bar as the focal point of a restaurant modeled after its predecessor ‘Bordello Meets Burger Bar’ at the Roosevelt. Deep leather wing chairs complete the sumptuous feeling of casual decadence. “We’re trying to achieve a place that is distinctly creative and strongly art driven,” says Lintott. “At the same time, we are trying to look at the idea of a hotel from a fresh angle as being very much of its place and of its time.”

Hotel G
7 Worker’s Stadium West Road
Chao Yang District, 100020 Beijing
People’s Republic of China
Tel: +8610 6552 3600
www.hotel-G.com

Rooms: 110 guestrooms and suites
Food: 25 Degrees (all day dining), Gilt (Mediterranean), Morio (Japanese)
Leisure: Urban Retreat with outdoor Jacuzzi and gym