12.6.2019 | DIGS.NET 35
A
R
C
H
I
T
E
C
T
U
R
E
|
D
E
S
I
G
N
|
B
U
I
L
D
In so doing he harnessed the elements to significant
aesthetic and functional advantage. "e water is an event
that borders the entire project," Aragonés explains, and "all of
the volumes open up toward the sea and turn their backs on
the city, which is all that remains of the original surroundings,
burdened by noise." Calling an everyday element an "event" is
not hyperbole; Aragonés's appropriation of water is essential
to the fluidity throughout the project. In this the architect
made the immovable feel like movement itself. "Mar Adentro
is a kind of Medina that opens out onto the sea," he adds.
"Each floating volume contains interiors that form, in turn,
independent universes. Each room visually contains a piece of
the sea; no one can resist gazing out at it."
ere is plenty to see inside the hypermodern hotel, as well.
Perched at the centerpiece of the place—a vast, contemplative
pool—is a restaurant shaped as a bird's nest that offers a
textural response to the smooth reflective surround, from
the water to the sharply angled, white-washed concrete.
Featuring lines meant to mirror the linear horizon, the
complex of structures hold the guts of the hotel, including an
array of fine restaurants, an art gallery, shopping center, and
spa and beach club on three sides. e fourth side was left
open to the sea. Also enclosed within the architecture are 200
guest rooms in a serene, Scandi-infused style of creamy tones,
wood accents and no unnecessary touches. ese spaces also
express a sense of geometry, and are, as formed, essentially
large frames of the sea views just beyond large panes of glass.
e mood is Mexico of the modern day melded with a Far
East feeling of calm.
e drama at Mar Adentro comes at night, when its
flotilla of forms is lit up in a brilliant display, transforming
the hotel into a luminescent paint box of blue and purple
shades that alights on its colonial enclave with the thrust
of the future. Even one's guest room, if so desired:
accommodations featuring color controls to present a bigger
rainbow of shades. is gesture supports the larger example
of bold, remarkable modernism that is Mar Adentro itself,
and its maker still another.
Even after long and studied appraisal of Mar Adentro,
the eye grapples with what the mind cannot rationally hold.
e desire is to see the architecture as something beyond
this earth. Yet of the earth it is, though perhaps not entirely.
maradentrocabos.com
