JW Marriott Phu Quoc Opens as Bill Bensley’s Imaginary University
The 244-room resort opened on 7 March 2017 on Khem Beach, designed as the campus of a fictional French colonial academy, with a bar called the Department of Chemistry.
JW Marriott Phu Quoc Emerald Bay opened on 7 March 2017 on Khem Beach, at the southern end of Phu Quoc, Vietnam’s largest island. It has 244 rooms, suites and villas. It was the first international luxury hotel on the island, and it is one of the most complete examples of the narrative design for which the Bangkok-based architect Bill Bensley is known.
Lamarck University
Bensley invented a history for the site. In his story, a French colonial academy called Lamarck University was founded here in the 1880s, flourished until the 1940s and fell into ruin, and the resort is its restored campus. None of it is true. Every detail is designed to support it.
Each wing is a department. The buildings are named for zoology, astronomy, architecture and other faculties, and are decorated accordingly, with specimen cases, anatomical drawings, telescopes and models. The lobby is the main hall, with trophies and team photographs. The pool is in the shape of a shell and stands before the Department of Conchology. Bensley and his team collected thousands of antiques and curiosities to furnish the conceit, including sports equipment, school desks and academic gowns, and staff wear uniforms that vary by department.
The architecture mixes French colonial forms with Vietnamese elements, in ochre, green and white, along a beach of fine sand with calm water.
Eating and drinking
The names continue the theme. The Department of Chemistry is the bar, with drinks served in laboratory glass. Tempus Fugit is the main restaurant, serving Vietnamese, Japanese and French food. Red Rum is the seafood grill on the beach, French & Co the bakery and Pink Pearl, in a pink mansion beside the main building, the fine-dining restaurant, originally Cantonese. A row of shops and cafés called Rue de Lamarck reproduces a street of Hoi An shophouses.
Reception
The resort could have been kitsch. It works because the story is carried through with complete seriousness and considerable craft, and because the rooms, the beach and the service function well without it. It won a long list of design awards and made Phu Quoc, until then known for fish sauce and pepper, a destination for hotel enthusiasts.
The owner is Sun Group, the Vietnamese developer that has since built much of the south of the island, including a cable car to a neighbouring islet. Later arrivals include the Regent Phu Quoc on the west coast.
Bensley’s other hotels in the region show the same method at different scales: Capella Hanoi, themed on the opera, Capella Ubud, a camp for imaginary explorers, and Rosewood Luang Prabang.