Location Ponta Delgada
Year of project completion 2024 – em apreciação
Total built area 500m²
Client Açores 2000, Sociedade De Desenvolvimento Turístico Dos Açores, S.A.
When designing the SPA for the Grand Hotel Açores Atlântico, we understood that our proposal should follow the concept already adopted by the Hotel. The interiors of the Grand Hotel Açores Atlântico have a strong naval inspiration, which arises from the Bensaude Group’s centuries-old tradition of Atlantic navigation. The maritime and naval influence is closely tied to the Empresa Insulana de Navegação, which belonged to the Bensaude Group for almost 100 years, and this is the concept on which the Hotel is based. All of it breathes a genuinely naval and maritime essence, where the company’s history is told through rare and unique pieces — such as the telegraph or the diving helmet, among other items, images and photographs, as well as various records that are displayed throughout the Hotel.
The architecture breathes an environment directly linked to naval constructions and the Mid Century era, coinciding with the heyday of the Empresa Insulana de Navegação in the 1960s, with the commissioning of the liner Funchal, Ponta Delgada, and Angra do Heroísmo. The Mid Century and Naval concepts are effusively represented by the dark woods, in plank format on the walls, or in chevron format on the floor, as well as by the brushed brass, visible on the hall staircase, lift doors, signage, mixers, handles, among various other elements.
The proposed materials follow the concepts defined for the design of the SPA for the Grand Hotel Açores Atlântico. These are materials that define the Mid Century era and the naval architecture that made up the fleet of the Empresa Insular de Navegação. Therefore, the Grand Hotel colour, the walnut wood, juxtaposed in planks, the gold of the brass, which characterised the naval machinery and accessories, meet and continue the chromatic and architectural language of the Hotel.
Marble from Verde Alpi and Travertino Navona, with a strong suggestion of modern architecture, will enhance the SPA spaces. It should be remembered that modern architecture corresponds to a movement that began at the beginning of the 20th century and reached its maximum expression after the 2nd World War, going until the 1960s, and is thus juxtaposed precisely with the history of Empresa Insular de Navegação itself. Finally, black is proposed as an oceanic hue.
The darkness of constructive elements, such as the indoor pool, among others that punctuate the spaces, offers a depth effect. We believe that the symbiosis of the materials can create a differentiating result, without clashing with the concept of the Hotel.
The proposal for the materials is the result of an in-depth study of the habits and customs of the generations that lived from the early years to the middle of the 20th century. The buildings, closely associated with their time and social class, are a mirror of society and its experiences.
Valuing the history of Empresa Insulana de Navegação at the Grand Hotel Açores Atlântico is to recover the nobility of the materials used in naval constructions and the hotel structures built at the time.
Walnut wood applied to planks, brushed brass, as well as honed Verde Alpi marbles and honed Navona Travertine, are construction materials representative of the era being celebrated.
“The truth is that, whatever people do, everything they do has the purpose of annulling time, suppressing it, and this suppression is called space.” 2.
The work of architecture preserves the mark of a Time. It preserves the spirit of an era, of a culture. The Grand Hotel Açores Atlântico, through its architecture and through its well-defined concepts, has established itself as a benchmark. Thus, we wanted to propose an architecture that respected the memory of the place, through the use of materials that evoked and ennobled the Hotel, without interfering with the formality of the place. Architecture cannot only be a shelter or a memory, it must also emanate from its Place a spirit, a culture. Only in this way can it be said that a certain work is a work of architecture.
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