Lisbon’s New Breed of Hotel

Date 11 February 2020

When it opens its doors in late spring this year, Hotel Hotel aims to answer the question of what is missing on the Lisbon hospitality scene.

The project’s mentor, Alexandre Martins says, “Our goal was to create a hotel that is unique because it brings together a multidisciplinary team who believes in a kind of permanent ongoing movement.” The local visionary team includes design studio Pedrita, known for its organic and adaptive methodology to spaces; award-winning fashion designer Alexandra Moura; founder of Gaya Immersions Yoga, Sara Montes; landscape architect Michael Hellgren; graphic designer and collage artist Clemens Behr; and a rotating set of tattoo artists, among others.

Hotel Hotel sets itself apart right from the outset: in a historical neighborhood, the building stands out thanks to Maria Ana Vasco Costa. Costa, who has degrees in both fine arts and architecture, uses three-dimensional, diamond-shaped azulejo tiles to create geometrical compositions that appear fluid when interacting with light. Another exterior wall of the hotel blossoms to life thanks to Argentinian painter and architect Francisco Diaz Scotto a.k.a. Pastel. The mural he’s painted was inspired by Lisbon’s botanical garden that’s located nearby.

Inside, expect walls filled with urban art from Portugal and abroad—thanks to curator and co-director of the Underdogs Gallery Pauline Foessel—as well as an immersive yoga studio, a tattoo store, a wildly inventive crossover kitchen, and so many plants as to qualify as a biosphere. Welcome to the wild wild rest.