hotels

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is set to open its newest property this summer, the Four Seasons Hotel Marrakech. The luxe hotel situated in a 40-acre walled oasis will feature 140 rooms and suites, five restaurants, two pools, an extensive spa, and acres of sunlit gardens. Offering a modern take on traditional Moorish architecture, rose-hued pavilions with hand-carved details are surrounded by a lush landscape of swimming and reflecting pools, gardens, pathways and fountains. Buildings are low-rise so as not to obstruct stunning views of the snow-capped Atlas Mountains and Menara Gardens beyond the Hotel's towering palms.

Two Spa pavilions sit among gardens filled with birds and exotic flora. The main pavilion offers 15 treatment rooms for massages, facials and body treatments, plus a salon and whirlpool. Surrounding the Hotel's posh public spaces, pavilions of guest rooms and suites form a village connected by arcades, walkways and courtyards evoking a contemporary medina filled with riads. Each of the 140 guest rooms and suites, which are among the largest in the city, has its own spacious balcony or terrace with mountain and garden views.

Gallery: Four Seasons Hotel Marrakech

Modern architecture-loving travelers will love the destinations featured by our friends over at Departures . The magazine took a look at Asia's coolest design hotels, which are some of the most impressive properties in Shanghai, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore. These properties are "sleek super towers and seemingly impossible, imagination-defying structures" according to the luxury magazine that is published by American Express publishing.

Today's Asian luxury hotels are influencing Western hotels, while once it was the opposite, according to Edwin Heathcote, architectural critic for the Financial Times. The most significant new hotels each have something that is memorable, the Departures piece explains. In some, it's the restaurant that's the most memorable; in others, it's a soaring sky bar or a penthouse suite. In others it is the structures themselves that are redefining skylines.

Hong Kong
According to Departures, Hong Kong has also opened itself up to a host of contemporary international architects who have put their stamp on the city, from Foster + Partners to Cesar Pelli to I. M. Pei. Recently, at the 117-room Upper House (from $425), local Andre Fu-known for doing the home of actress Michelle Yeoh-has created an ideal, almost spiritual, balance of uncluttered spaces. "The design is not Asian in a literal manner," Fu told Departures, "but it reflects a subtle Asian sensitivity." He has achieved this with pools of water, bamboo enclosures, natural timber, shoji glass, limestone and lacquered paper panels. Additional design highlights include the Sky Bridge on the 49th floor, which crosses a 130-foot-high atrium; the hotel's Bedonia stone façade (see photo above) by one of Britain's hottest architect-designers, Thomas Heatherwick; and freestanding bathtubs with panoramic harbor or island views.

Gallery: Beverly Wilshire Reborn

The two-bedroom Presidential Suite offers 4,000 square feet of space, entered through a spectacular grand foyer (above) with Corinthian columns and intricate crown molding designed when the Hotel first opened over 80 years ago. Located on the eighth floor of the hotel's original Wilshire Wing, it features sweeping views of the Hollywood Hills and has been graced by numerous celebrities, legends and dignitaries over the years. The suite comes complete with its own living room and library as well, while the master bath is fitted with a soaking tub, steam shower for two and integrated televisions in the mirrors above the black lacquer vanity counters. [continued]