InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland Opens Inside a Quarry

InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland opened on 15 November 2018 in Songjiang district, about 35 kilometres south-west of central Shanghai. The hotel is built into the wall of an abandoned quarry 88 metres deep, with only two of its 18 floors rising above the rim. The other 16 step down the rock face, and the lowest two sit below the level of the lake that fills the quarry floor.

The project was developed by Shimao Group and is managed by IHG. Its origins go back to 2006, when the quarry in the Sheshan hills was identified as a possible site; construction started in 2009 and the cost was reported at about 2 billion yuan. The design is by British architect Martin Jochman, who developed the concept with Atkins and completed it with his studio JADE+QA.

The building has 336 rooms and suites in two curved wings, with balconies facing the opposite cliff and its waterfalls. Between the wings, a glazed vertical shaft that the architects call a glass waterfall carries the observation lifts down to the water. A planted roof keeps the two visible storeys low against the hillside. Leisure facilities and pools are at the bottom of the pit, and the underwater levels include a duplex suite whose living room looks into an aquarium.

At the opening, Shimao deputy chairman Xu Shitan described the site as an abandoned quarry that had been turned into a treasure.

The hotel sits outside the usual Shanghai itinerary, close to Sheshan and the Chenshan Botanical Garden and roughly 30 kilometres from Hongqiao airport. It is a destination hotel in the literal sense: guests come for the building, and a night there is closer to visiting a piece of landscape engineering than to a city stay.