Mexico City

A Look Inside The World's Richest Man's New Museum

Filed under: Art, Wealth

Last fall we saw video renderings of the plans for the new Soumaya museum planned by Mexico's richest man Carlos Slim. The new branch of the museum named for his late wife is the the second one that he has created. The six-story museum was designed by his son-in-law Fernando Romero. The modern and shiny aluminum structure is composed of over 16,000 tiles. The building has five stories of exhibition space totaling 183,000 square feet with six halls. The AP shot some photos as the museum prepared for its inauguration on March 1 by Mexico's President Felipe Calderon.

Tags: auguste rodin, carlos slim, dali, mexico city, mexico city museum, rodin, salvador dali, soumaya museum

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Celebrate a Sky High Valentine's Day on the St. Regis Mexico City's Helipad

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining, Luxury Travel & Hotels

How to rise above the ho-hum Valentine's Day celebrations taking place down on the ground? The St. Regis Mexico City has the answer in the form of their high altitude "True Love Has No Limits" experience, set 33 stories atop one of the tallest and most exclusive addresses in town. Ensconced on the hotel's helipad – 492 feet above the ground – which will be transformed into an intimate entertainment venue for the evening, couples will enjoy a candlelight four-course dinner and wine pairing personalized according to tastes, a bottle of champagne, live music and private security. The bespoke "True Love Has No Limits" experience begins at $1,500 for two including a one-night stay at the elegant St. Regis Mexico City (above), designed by legendary architect Cesar Pelli featuring 189 captivating guestrooms, including 35 suites and The St. Regis and Astor Suites, each with a gorgeous view of the bustling metropolis below.

Tags: helicopter, luxury hotels, Mexico, Mexico City, St. Regis, The St. Regis Mexico City, Valentines Day

Carlos Slim's Museum To House Huge Rodin Collection

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

The world's richest man, Mexico's Carlos Slim, has had a busy summer. Not only did he pick up the Duke-Semans Mansion in New York for a $44 million, but he's been hard at work on another project, the new branch of his Soumaya museum. The museum in Mexico City is the second one that the has created. The six-story museum, named for his late wife, was designed by son-in-law Fernando Romero. The modern and shiny aluminum structure will contain his treasure trove of artwork by French sculptor Auguste Rodin, the biggest collection outside of France. The new museum will open on November 30 as part of the Mexican bicentennial celebrations and admission will be free.

The building will have five stories of exhibition space totaling 183,000 square feet. A piece by Rufino Tamayo, one of Mexico's best known painters, will grace in the lobby. The Latin American Herald Tribune says that Slim is investing $1.4 billion in Plaza Carso, a complex that will also be home to movie theaters, housing and retail space. Slim has an art collection of 66,000 pieces, a number that makes Eli Broad's 2,000-piece collection seem almost modest my comparison. Check out a couple of video renderings of the project after the jump.

Tags: Auguste Rodin, Carlos Slim, Carlos Slim Helu, mexico city, rodin, soumaya museum

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Mexicana Airlines Bankruptcy Strands Passengers

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wings

Panic at Los Angeles International Airport this week as Mexicana Airlines filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and Mexico. The airline has suspended some of its flights in Mexico and across the U.S. The airline has promised to give passengers refunds or to rebook them on other flights. The Wall Street Journal reports that the airline had already had several planes repossessed. In filings on Tuesday the airline said that it had lost $350 million since 2007 and listed debt of more than $1 billion.

The Mexico City-based airline attributed its problems to high labor costs and also the problems afflicting Mexico's tourism industry. According to an article in the LA Times the airline says that its costs for pilots and flight attendants are far higher than those of rival airlines. It has called for new contracts that would cut the wages for pilots and flight attendants and reduce the workforce by 40 percent. The secretary general of Mexicana's flight attendants union said the comparison between Mexicana's salaries and the other Mexican airlines doesn't really make sense because those carriers offer shorter flights and a different level of service.

Mexican tourism has taken a lot of hits recently and this latest development won't help matters. In the past couple of years the combination of the global economic crisis, the swine flu epidemic and worries over violence caused by drug cartels has had the popular vacation destination fighting for tourism dollars.

Mexicana operates nearly 70 planes flying to the U.S., Canada, Central and South America and Europe. Last year alone it carried 11.1 million passengers in 2009. The airline's parent company, Nuevo Grupo Aeronautico operates two low-cost domestic airlines, Clink and Link, which will continue to operate without interruption.

Tags: mexicana, Mexico, Mexico City

Hotel Design: Comfort versus Boredom at Grupo Habita Hotels

by Alison Wellner (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels

Would you rather be entirely bored but very comfortable in a luxury hotel, or slightly less comfortable while having a unique hotel experience?

To me, this is the central question that Grupo Habita's hotels raise, and it's a good one.

Habita is a Mexico-based boutique hotel company owns nine properties in Mexico, from its namesake Habita in Mexico City, to the ultra-sceney Condesa df, also in Mexico City, to its latest hotel, Boca Chica, in Acapulco. Its Monterrey Hotel, Habita MTY won a 2010 *Wallpaper Design award, which you don't get for being fusty or forgettable.

None of these adjectives can be used in connection with Habita's properties. In an interview on Hotel Management Network, co-owners Carlos Couturier and Moises Micha said "Our mission is to impose a certain philosophy on society. We are not here only to create hotels, we are here to make people understand that creativity is good for society. We don't only build hotels. We build experiences."

I've stayed at Habita's property in Puebla, La Purificadora, and I also stayed at Condesa df, and I'm glad I read that interview, because I can now evaluate the properties on their own terms. Condesa is a fun, trendy neighborhood in D.F., and the hotel is just that -- the qualities that I'd count as strikes against in a traditional hotel -- smallish rooms, slightly noisy -- are actually part of the experience of being in that neighborhood. You don't go there for a retreat, you go there to be in the middle of things. As I mentioned in my review of La Purificadora, I thought that form sometimes trumped function, but I never once forgot that I was in a hotel that was making use of its space in a former water purification factory.

Gallery: Condesa DF and Boca Chica

Condesa df Rooftop Bar, Around the Corner

Tags: acapulco, boutique hotel, grupo habita hotels, habita hotel, mexican hotels, Mexico, Mexico City, mexico hotels, monterrey

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Torre Bicentenario, Mexico Celebrates Independence With A Large Tower

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Estates

Mexico City will have a new tower that will be Latin America's tallest building. Mexico City is already home to the tallest building in Latin America, the Torre Mayor which is 738 feet (55 stories). The new building, the Torre Bicentenario will be 984 feet tall and 85 stories. The building will be home to offices, restaurants and a convention center and will cost an estimated $600 million. The design is by Rem Koolhaas famed for his designs of the Prada stores in New York and Los Angeles and other places as well as the Seattle Central Library. The building is set to be completed in 2010, when Mexico celebrates 200 years since the start of its battle for independence from Spain. Not the most stunning design I've ever seen but perhaps the low center of gravity provides some protection again earthquakes.

Source

Tags: mexico, mexico city, rem koolhaas, skyscraper, torres bicentenario, TorresBicentenario, tower