Alila Wuzhen Opens as a Modern Water Town
Opened in November 2018 with 125 suites and villas by the Hangzhou architects GOA, the resort abstracts the lanes, courtyards and canals of a Jiangnan town into white walls and still water.
Alila Wuzhen opened in November 2018 on the edge of Wuzhen, the canal town in northern Zhejiang, about 90 minutes by road from both Shanghai and Hangzhou. It has 125 suites and villas and was Alila’s third hotel in China, after Anji and Yangshuo.
The town
Wuzhen is the best preserved of the water towns of the Jiangnan region, with stone bridges, timber houses on stilts over the canals and workshops for indigo cloth and rice wine. It is heavily visited, and its two historic quarters are run as ticketed sites. It also has an unexpected second life: a theatre festival each autumn, founded by the director Stan Lai and others, an international contemporary art exhibition, and the Mu Xin Art Museum, a fine small building on the water.
The design
The architects, GOA of Hangzhou, did not reproduce the old town. They reduced it to its elements. The resort is a grid of single-storey buildings with white walls and grey pitched roofs, separated by narrow lanes paved in grey stone and by sheets of shallow water. There is almost no ornament, and few windows face outward. Guests find their way through what the architects call the maze, turning corners into courtyards, as in the lanes of the town itself.
The interiors are by Hong Kong’s BLVD, in pale timber, white plaster and grey stone. Every suite and villa has a walled courtyard, and the pool villas have private pools within it. At the centre of the plan a large water court holds a single tree. The indoor swimming pool, under a patterned pitched roof with light filtering through perforations, is the most photographed space.
The effect depends on weather and light. In mist or after rain, with the walls reflected in the water, the hotel resembles an ink painting. It won several international architecture awards in the year after it opened.
Facilities
The restaurants serve the cooking of Zhejiang, with river fish, bamboo shoots and braised pork, and an international menu. Spa Alila, a gym with a yoga studio and a large events hall complete the resort, which is used for meetings as well as leisure.
Where it fits
Alila Wuzhen belongs to a group of hotels near Shanghai that have made contemporary Chinese architecture their main attraction, with Amanyangyun, Alila Yangshuo further south and the retreats of Anji and Moganshan. The old town is ten minutes away by the hotel’s shuttle; go at opening time or in the evening, when day visitors have left.