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
Capella Ubud began as a plan for a conventional hotel. Its site, about nine acres of rainforest and rice paddies in Keliki village, in Tegallalang, was meant to carry a hundred-room hotel, by Bill Bensley’s account, until he “convinced the owner to change tack” to a project of minimal impact. Bensley, who designed both the … Read more
Bulgari’s first hotel in China: 119 rooms by Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel in riverside gardens in Beijing’s embassy district.
A safari camp of 28 cocoon-shaped tents between the jungle of Yala National Park and the Indian Ocean.
Sri Lanka’s first purpose-built luxury wellness resort: 22 open pavilions on a former tea estate in the hills near Kandy.
The Ritz-Carlton, Tokyo occupies the top nine floors of Midtown Tower, beginning on the 45th. Below it lies Tokyo Midtown, which the Mitsui Fudosan group built on 6.9 hectares that had been the headquarters of the Defense Agency. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, as master architect, gathered the floor area into one quadrant of the site … Read more
The plot at 1-1-1 Marunouchi first held the office of the Imperial Household’s forestry bureau. In 1947, on the orders of the occupation authorities, the building was turned into the Hotel Teito, a state-run hotel for foreign buyers. The state sold it in 1959; a new company, Palace Hotel, was incorporated in February 1960, and … Read more
Mori Building opened talks with the landowners of Azabudai in March 1989, when the site was a narrow, hilly neighbourhood of small houses and wooden buildings. It took nearly 35 years and about 300 landowners: the plan was approved in 2017, construction began in 2019, and Azabudai Hills opened in November 2023, three towers by … Read more
Bvlgari Hotel Tokyo takes the 40th to 45th floors of Tokyo Midtown Yaesu, the tower Mitsui Fudosan developed with a local redevelopment association beside Tokyo Station. Designed by Takenaka Corporation and Nihon Sekkei and completed in August 2022, it also holds offices, shops, the Bus Terminal Tokyo Yaesu and a public elementary school. Yaesu had … Read more