Melco Crown Entertainment has contracted with Zaha Hadid Architects to design a fifth hotel tower at its City of Dreams resort in Macau. The company launched development of the 40-story tower last year with an opening slated for early 2017. The hotel will include 780 rooms and villas along with restaurants, a spa, lounge, rooftop pool and meeting and event facilities within a gross floor area of 150,000 square meters. The resort currently is home to four hotels, Crown Towers, Hard Rock and a twin-tower Grand Hyatt.
Zaha Hadid, founder of Zaha Hadid Architects, was a winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (considered to be the Nobel Prize of architecture) in 2004, and has been included in Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” list, ranking near the top of the Thinkers’ category. Zaha Hadid Architects’ work of the past 30 years was the subject of critically acclaimed exhibitions. In 2010 and 2011, her designs were awarded the Stirling Prize, one of architecture’s highest accolades, by the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 2012, Hadid was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.
Lawrence Ho, co-chairman and CEO of Melco Crown Entertainment, said the announcement is an appropriate celebration of the property’s fifth anniversary.
“Melco Crown Entertainment has always been in the forefront of innovation,” he said. “We are delighted to introduce the world-class architecture brand, Zaha Hadid Architects, into Macau and to showcase her creative work in City of Dreams. Dame Zaha Hadid’s distinctive design is closely aligned with our vision to provide unique entertainment experiences for our customers. We are confident that the new property will become an iconic landmark in Cotai and Macau and contribute meaningfully to tourism development through the enhancement of the cultural landscape.
“City of Dreams has been leading the way at the premium end of the market in Macau. The new hotel tower perfectly complements its already World-class gaming and non-gaming attractions and further broadens City of Dreams’ appeal to the increasingly sophisticated visitor to Macau.”
Hadid says the dramatic tower fits in with both the City of Dreams image, as well as her own.
“We are delighted to be building the new flagship hotel for City of Dreams in Macau,” she said “I have always believed in the fantastic and the tower will serve as a source of inspiration; an intriguing combination of formal dynamism and structural integrity. The design resolves the many complex requirements for the hotel within a single cohesive envelop.”
