Jean Nouvel designs "vertical garden tower" for Rosewood hotel

French architect Jean Nouvel has designed a lattice-covered tower to house guest rooms and residences at the Rosewood São Paulo resort, which features interiors by French designer Philippe Starck.

Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner Nouvel's 25-storey concrete Mata Atlantica Tower houses the majority of accommodation at the Rosewood São Paulo, which is located close to the major Avenida Paulista thoroughfare and many of the Brazilian city's important cultural institutions.

The tower steps inward gradually as it rises, creating spaces for large roof gardens as well as balconies for the 114 guest rooms and 100 private Rosewood Suites available for purchase inside.

These gardens and the vertical timber screens that cover the building were planted as part of a biodiversity programme, which aims to repopulate the indigenous flora and fauna from the Mata Atlantica rainforest.

"Covered in wood and wrapped in generous nature, the vertical garden tower features 10,000 trees and rises 100 metres into the sky," said a statement from Rosewood.

This one of several recent Nouvel projects that heavily incorporate plants, including the Aquarela complex in Ecuador.

The Mata Atlantica Tower accompanies a 1950s maternity ward, part of the Matarazzo hospital complex created by Count Matarazzo – one of Brazil's most important early industrialists.

This low-rise Italianate building – where over half a million Brazilians were born – was also renovated to house an additional 46 guest rooms and amenities, including the hotel lobby and several dining and drinking venues

"Set between a restored 20th-century building and a modern new vertical garden tower, the luxury hotel is uniting the city's storied past with its cultural future," said the Rosewood team.

Under the artistic direction of Starck, the interiors mix solely Brazilian-sources materials such as local wood species, dramatic marbles, tiles, textiles and furnishings.

Guests arriving by car are guided under a plant-covered canopy into a porte cochere with a fully mirrored wall and wood-panelled ceiling.

The lobby seating and bookshelves spill out onto the roadside, inviting visitors into the warmly decorated space populated with iconic Brazilian furniture designs.

A permanent collection of art featuring over 450 works by 57 renowned and emerging Brazilian artists, from Sandra Cinto and Vik Muniz to Caligrapixo and Virgilio Neto.

The ground-floor restaurants include Le Jardin, and indoor-outdoor dining concept that's open 24 hours, and Blaise, a brasserie influenced by French-Swiss novelist Blaise Cendrars that features a chalet-like interior with bands of polished green glass stones between the wood.

An intimate cocktail bar named Rabo di Galo offers live jazz below a celestial hand-painted ceiling by artist Rodrigo de Azevedo Saad.

Taraz, on the level above, serves South American dishes within a rustic setting that spills out to a patio over the hotel's porte cochere.

Nouvel's tower and the maternity building are connected by a covered breezeway, which provides access to the Emerald Garden Pool and Bar on one side and a verdant landscaped area that connects to Le Jardin on the other.

The pool area is designed by Starck's team and blends styles of mid-century Brazil and the work of Antoni Gaudí to create a colourful, whimsical guests-only oasis.

There's also a bar at the top of the maternity building decorated to look like a grandmother's home, and a roof deck with a plunge pool above.

At the base of Nouvel's tower is a private entrance for residents, while a spa, wellness and fitness centre are located on the level above.

On the top is a two-storey penthouse, also with interiors by Stark that include rich wood panelling and dramatic stone bathrooms, plus a rainforest roof garden with a pool that enjoys panoramic views across São Paulo.

The hotel also houses a gigantic ballroom, a host of smaller event and exhibitions spaces, and connects to an on-site sustainability centre.

Rosewood São Paulo forms part of the seven-acre Cidade Matarazzo complex, which encompasses multiple historic buildings that were all once in use as a hospital but decommisioned in 1993.

These structures are currently undergoing renovation work to create a 30,000-square-metre, mixed-use destination that will include shops, restaurants, health clinics and a subterranean concert venue.

Already open to the public, the site's Casa Bradesco cultural centre is currently hosting a exhibition of large-scale sculptures and installations by British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor.

Also on the property is the 1922 Santa Luzia Chapel, which was stripped back to its original ornate design and given a new rose window by Muniz, and now hosts weddings and other celebrations.

Restoration of the church required reinforcing its structure with eight concrete columns that descend several storeys underground, in order to accommodate parking space for Cidade Matarazzo – which is due to fully complete next year.

The photography is courtesy of Rosewood.

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