Mondrian - Miami

Wanders has previously worked on hospitality projects including The Lute Suites – an innovative collection of rooms scattered across Amsterdam – and the restaurant at New York’s The Hotel On Rivington, but Mondrian Miami is his first full-scale hotel project, crowned with several floors of ‘residences’ available to purchase.

Where Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in the Grimm Brothers fairytale was surrounded by a thorny forest of briars, Wanders has created a labyrinthine set of lush gardens which lead to the main hotel. Here, private cabanas are set within tall archways of living foliage. Tented areas with sandpits and bouncy toys, enhance the playful feel.
Wanders has influenced the architecture of the building as well as its interiors, by extending the existing curvilinear envelope to form a semicircular sculptural structure in which the rooms resemble theatrical boxes overlooking the tropical gardens below. The Dutchman believes that “interiors are about theatre, leading you from one idea to the next and the next,” and in the theatre that is Mondrian Miami, “everyone has the best seat in the house“.

Since making his name with his iconic Knotted Chair, Wanders has become a prolific product designer for the likes of B&B Italia, Poliform, Moroso, Flos and Moooi. It’s no surprise to find the hotel and residences furnished with signature Wanders’ pieces, many of them designed specifically for this project. 
The centrepiece of the hotel is a stunning black patterned staircase which spirals through the lobby, lounge and bar areas. In the lobby, Black ‘Smoke’ chairs sit against a background of stark white walls, embellished only with the childlike face which stares out from many of the walls. Supporting columns have been clad to resemble giant contoured table legs.

Beyond the lobby, guests enter the Sunset Lounge. Here the filtered light and sinking sun are reflected in etched, tinted mirrors. Golden candelabras and onyx, jewel-cut stools are dotted between Ottomans and new antiques. Gold leaf wallpaper surrounds a stretch patterned sofa set upon a dark herringbone floor. 

The hotel is also the setting for Jeffrey Chodorow’s latest Asia de Cuba restaurant – a common feature in Morgans’ hotels with the concept’s signature communal table. Again golden bells, with crystal chandeliers set within, are suspended above the table. Patterned, cushioned deep booths line the walls of the room. The restaurant opens out onto the terrace with its private dining gardens and “kissing corners.”
In the Agua spa a mirrored-mosaic reception desk scatters light across the dimly lit room. A door hidden in the perforated patterned wall leads to a manicure area. Bisazza Mosaic is tiled across the walls of the locker rooms splashing them with continuous patterns and colors that overflow through the rest of the spa. As well as the usual sauna, steam room, and treatment rooms, a cushioned lounge features a snoozer rocking chair and Delft Blue style carpet.

The Mondrian is set away from the main drag of South Beach hotels in the fashionable, emerging neighbourhood along Biscayne Bay. The complex consists of 335 studios, one- and two-bedroom hotel residences, and tower suites, priced at the time of writing anywhere between $500,000 and $6 million.

MONDRIAN
1100 West Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida 33139, USA
Tel: +1 305 514 1500
www.mondrian-miami.com

Rooms    335 studios, residences & suites
Dining    Asia de Cuba
Drinks    Sunset Lounge
Spa   Agua spa
Facilities    two meeting rooms, swimming pool, extensive gardens