Posts Tagged ‘asia’
Perched 28 floors up at the top of Hong Kong’s fashionable Hotel ICON in Kowloon, Above & Beyond serves up dim-sum and seasonal Cantonese cuisine amid a spectacular harbor view. This upscale restaurant is just minutes away from the bustling urban center of Tsim Sha Tsui, buzzing with shops, restaurants and museums. However, all that excitement melts away the minute you step into Above & Beyond’s sleek, modern realm.
40 years ago in 1971, the Shangri-La opened its very first hotel in Singapore, eventually spreading out into 72 hotels and resorts around the globe cultivating an effortless lavishness. It is a glamorous place that doesn’t need try too hard, but still exudes extravagance in every way.
The St. Regis hotel in Beijing is home to a number of the city’s hottest dining spots and watering holes. Highlights range from Cantonese to Italian cuisine, and from a cigar lounge to a steakhouse with city views. Yet one standout among these is the Press Club Bar, a stylish find located just off the hotel’s opulent main lobby.
In Singapore’s Little India district there’s a stylish boutique hotel making waves. The Wanderlust Hotel is a haven for contemporary design, filled with funky, one-of-a-kind rooms decorated around cool themes like outer space, bling, a tree, and a typewriter.
In a busy city packed with people, Italian architect Gaetano Pesce has designed a garden that reaches skyward. Crawling up the walls of a building filled with restaurants, shops, and office space, Pesce’s upward-sprawling garden houses 80 varieties of plants, all above street level.
[ via Fresh Home ]
Hongtao Zhou is a furniture designer and performance artist who started out studying chemistry in Harbin, China and ended up working as a furniture designer and sculptor, obtaining a Ph.D. in furniture design from Purdue University along the way. The wax chairs pictured above are from his series “Burniture” and are made to be lit until the candles finally burn, melt, and collapse the piece.
“These small wicks are burning down the “coldness” of the icy-looking wax chairs. Cold chairs generate “hot” seats, baking, melting and disappearing. At the same time, the hot wax liquid is melting down into “icicles.” Conflicts. Over consumption will weaken the chair system and eventually cause chair figures to collapse. It is just a matter of time. Burn the ice, burn our seats, burn us.” —Hongtao Zhou
Many of Hongtao’s works, such as his snow furniture pieces below, involve manipulation of ice and snow.
[ via hongtaozhou.com ]
For vampire lovers and creative types, you’ll find oodles of inspiration in the land of love hotels and maid cafés, among Japan’s many fantasy themed establishments. When I lived in Japan, one of my favorite places to go was the Christon Café, a lounge filled with decorative relics and church paraphernalia purchased from various churches around the globe. Everything in there was a feast for the eyes! Well, looks like there are a plethora of new places that have popped up around Tokyo recently with equally imaginative themes, like the Vampire Café pictured above. For the scoop on more themed restaurants check out the guardian.co.uk
[ photo via the guardian.co.uk ]
Okay, I’m not usually one to talk about time spent in the bathroom. However, I just have to make an exception for the über-luxe guest bathrooms at the St. Regis hotel in Beijing. Alright, I’m not actually just talking about the bathrooms, although the designer bath and body products, fresh flowers, and flat screen television in the mirror are certainly nice. What I’m really dying to tell you about is the toilet!
Hong Kong artist Danny Lee Chin-fai’s three-piece sculpture titled Dance of Clouds and Rain is an awe-inspiring, elemental sight to behold, housed in the skyward-sweeping lobby of the Grande Hyatt Macau. Composed of giant suspended raindrops and water rivulets spilling from clouds in the ceiling, Danny’s pieces sway slightly in the breeze, the soft curves of these stunning show-stoppers dangling harmoniously amongst a sea of geometric modernism.
Wu Guanzhong 吴冠中 is a striking Chinese painter whose work has helped define modern Chinese art. Born in 1919 in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, Wu went on to study at Ecole Nationale Supérieur des Beaux-arts in Paris, before returning to China to teach art. Wu was the first living Chinese artist to have a solo show at the British Museum in 1992.
Wu’s art contains a whisper of Western influence, and his painting technique hints at his classical European training. Yet his striking paintings and large-format works on paper bravely explore the balance of white space and form in a way that is distinctly Chinese, marrying dramatic use of line work with a mature color palate.
(Click Here For More Wu Guanzhong)
