Fontana Park Hotel

In designing Fontana Park, prominent Portuguese architect Francisco Aires Mateus reclaimed an existing, early 20th-century building, thereby incorporating historical Lisbon into his otherwise very modern design. Meanwhile, “minimalist” Portuguese designer Nini Andrade Silva created clean, comfortable interiors using pared-down geometry and a simple palette of black, white and grey accented with a few, well-placed touches of green and purple.

The reception area incorporates various iron elements in homage to the building’s original function as a small factory for iron structures, and the 139 rooms, in keeping with the reclamation theme, feature concrete walls softened by the sleek, clean furniture that extends out from them. Windows generous in size and number assure that visitors are in constant communication with the dynamic urban landscape surrounding them, while an interior, open-air courtyard – complete with waterfall and bamboo trees – references the green side of Lisbon, specifically, the Parque Eduardo VII a short walk away. Common areas, too, celebrate the multi-faceted, multi-cultural city in whose midst the Fontana Park stands: the black-and-purple themed Saldanha-Mar restaurant serves modern Portuguese seafood fare, while the sun-lit Bonsai restaurant, home to a bonsai tree more than 100 years old, celebrates Asian gastronomy. The hotel also houses nine multi-purpose rooms that can be used for meetings, banquets, cocktail hours, seminars and the like. [Design Hotels]

Fontana Park Hotel, Lisbon, Portugal