Hotel Review: The Opposite House in Beijing

Time : 2009-07-12

Starting with the Forbidden City, Beijing has always had a love affair with bigness, one that in recent years has gotten supersized — not just in terms of the modern metropolis’s gazillion-lane thoroughfares and mega-jumbo-developments, but also its towering hotels. Thankfully, the Opposite House promises some relief. Built during the capital’s rush toward last year’s Olympics, this 99-room boutique property is the first from Swire Hotels, a new Hong Kong-based group with international ambitions. And at a boxy six stories, clad in screen-printed glass in pixilated shades of green, it’s a Kengo Kuma-designed stunner that has the city’s chattering classes exclaiming over its generous rooms and dramatic, moodily lit atrium — all offering an aura of quiet and intimacy.