The Karl Lagerfeld Macau
Interiors wholly designed by Karl Lagerfeld: 271 rooms of modern Chinoiserie and a 4,000-book lounge in a tower of Grand Lisboa Palace Resort, Cotai.
- Neighbourhood
- Grand Lisboa Palace Resort, Cotai
- Status
- Open
- Design
- Karl Lagerfeld (interiors)
Photo: Karl Lagerfeld Macau
Why we recommend it
Fashion-branded hotels are often licensing exercises. This one is different because the designer did the interiors himself, over several years, and did not live to see it finished. According to the resort, he conceived or chose every feature, pattern and material in the rooms. The result is recognisably his: bold colour and pattern, tailored lines, his own profile repeated as a motif, and a library.
At 271 rooms it is small for Cotai, and it has its own entrance, so that it feels like a separate hotel and not a wing of a very large resort. It suits travellers who care about interiors and want something more particular than the standard Cotai tower, while keeping the restaurants and gardens of the wider resort within reach.
Together with Palazzo Versace Macau, the Italian house’s hotel in the neighbouring tower, it makes Grand Lisboa Palace the resort for travellers interested in design by fashion houses. Our guide to Cotai’s Zaha Hadid, Versace and Lagerfeld towers compares them, and our report on the opening of The Karl Lagerfeld hotel gives the background.
Rooms & Suites
There are 271 rooms and suites, and the door of each is framed in red. Categories carry the designer’s initial: Klassik and Grand Klassik rooms, of 60 and 70 square metres, followed by the Kameo, Createur and Ikonik suites, of 63 to 97 square metres. The Autograph Suite, at 350 square metres, is the largest and looks over the resort’s gardens; most other categories have city views.
The Klassik room sets out the modern Chinoiserie theme that runs through the hotel. Headboards are made to a design based on Chinese coins, a symbol of good fortune, and the porcelain vases were made by hand in Jingdezhen. In the Ikonik Suite a circular opening modelled on the traditional moon gate divides the rooms.
Dining
Mesa is the hotel’s restaurant, serving contemporary Portuguese cooking from a menu by the chef José Avillez, in a room that, like the others in the tower, was designed by Lagerfeld. A Portuguese restaurant of this ambition is a fitting thing to find in Macau.
The Book Lounge, lined with more than 4,000 books chosen from the designer’s bookshop in Paris, serves as the hotel’s lounge. Guests also have the restaurants of the wider resort to draw on, among them Palace Garden and Zuicho, both at Grand Lisboa Palace.
Design
Lagerfeld’s scheme combines modern Chinoiserie and traditional Chinese craftsmanship with Art Deco touches. The lobby is finished in burnished gold and black marble, with walls of books from floor to ceiling and a chandelier by Terzani, the Florentine lighting maker, whose pieces also hang in the rooms. Sculptures by Marcel Wanders and Jean-Michel Othoniel are placed through the hotel.
The Chinese references are specific and not merely decorative: coin motifs, moon gates, Jingdezhen porcelain. The tower itself has 20 storeys and stands beside Grand Lisboa Palace Macau, the resort’s main hotel, whose European palace style makes a strong contrast. Our article on Macau as an exhibition of hotel architecture sets the three towers in context.
Wellness & Spa
The health club is on the third floor. It has a temperature-controlled indoor pool, decorated in the designer’s manner with oriental elements, and an outdoor pool finished in mosaic, with a view over the resort’s gardens and architecture. There is a gym equipped by Technogym, and a spa with six treatment rooms.
Location
The hotel is within Grand Lisboa Palace Resort Macau in Cotai, Macau, in a tower with its own entrance. It shares the resort with Jardim Secreto, the formal garden at its centre, and with a large shopping arcade. Macau International Airport is a few minutes away by car.
- Website
- Official website
