Studio Paolo Ferrari: the cool secret room based in Dubai
Some serious magic is happening at the mysterious basement of Dubai’s Five Palm Jumeirah Hotel.
Dubai’s MO has long been to upsize every quotidian experience; whether to create the world’s biggest mall or an artificial island that’s visible from space.
Little surprise then that even the ideal of the traditional speakeasy as a small cozy affair has now been turned on its head. For Toronto-based Studio Paolo Ferrari, the visual references splice Rome’s Villa Farnese, the final Louis XIV-esque bedroom scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago.
The result is an unapologetically theatrical set-piece in which clear cast resin tables, 1960s furnishings, and smoked oak panels flank a bronze-hued fiberglass bar whose sinuous curves recall both Dali and Zaha Hadid.
The bathrooms, lined with glass floors and mirrored walls, are attention grabbers – though, perhaps, not as much as the hidden doors in the main room that swing open for VIPs to literally drive into the speakeasy directly from the carpark
Sandra Hans