Bang Krachao is a loop of the Chao Phraya just across the river from Bangkok, protected from development and known as the city’s green lung, although it lies in Samut Prakan province. There, on some 200 rai, the Thai developer M.K. Real Estate built RAKxa with VitalLife, the wellness centre of Bumrungrad International Hospital, which … Read more
The pit is a former stone quarry on Tianma Mountain, in the Sheshan resort area of Songjiang in south-western Shanghai. Euronews reported that it was worked during the Second World War and closed in 2000 under new environmental rules. The pit it left is usually given as 88 metres deep, with water at the bottom. … Read more
Nai Lert, born in 1872 and later ennobled as Phraya Bhakdinorasreth, opened the Hotel De La Paix in 1907, which his family’s company calls the first hotel founded by a Thai entrepreneur, and went on to run the first passenger boats on Khlong Saen Saep in 1908, Bangkok’s first buses in 1909 and Thailand’s first … Read more
Dusit Thani means “city of heaven”, and it was the name King Vajiravudh gave to the miniature city he built to rehearse democracy. Khunying Chanut Piyaoui took it for the hotel she opened in February 1970 on the corner of Rama IV and Silom roads, across from Lumpini Park and the king’s statue at its … Read more
Caochang is a group of about seventeen north–south hutongs in Qianmen East, in Dongcheng District, and its lane pattern has barely changed since the Qianlong map of 1750; the widest lane is five metres across, the narrowest eighty centimetres. Under the Qing more than a hundred guild halls stood here. When the district began repairing … Read more
When the Murray Building went up on Cotton Tree Drive in 1969, as government offices, it stood on an island among roads, a tower for a city planned around the car. Ron Phillips of the Public Works Department designed it, and it served the government for more than forty years; the Information Services Department, among … Read more
When Yoshiharu Hoshino announced a ryokan in Otemachi, he explained that Japanese inns had almost vanished from Tokyo, and that he wanted one that kept the customs without compromising on the comfort modern travellers expect. Hoshinoya Tokyo opened on 20 July 2016 on the site of a daimyo’s residence beside the Ōtemon gate of Edo … Read more
Bulgari’s first hotel in China: 119 rooms by Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel in riverside gardens in Beijing’s embassy district.
Fifty-five villas in the restored red-brick lane houses of a 1930s estate in the former French Concession.
Swire’s Shanghai House: 111 large studios by Piero Lissoni on Nanjing West Road, with the informal service the group is known for.