WITH over thirty properties globally, it was only a matter of time before EDITION came to Africa and it has done so now with eye-catching aplomb.
The location, the V&A Waterfront, is where everyone coming to Cape Town is likely to spend some time – if not for its wealth of visitor amenities then for the stunning backdrop of Table Mountain. As home to the oldest working harbour in the Southern Hemisphere, the Waterfront’s setting is steeped in history and, in a daring display of architectural alchemy, features of its mercantile and maritime past have been incorporated into the material language of Cape Town EDITION.
Cape Town EDITION
Punch Room
The Shanghai-based design company Neri&Hu know about fabricating buildings in harmony with their contexts and, with the 142-room Cape Town EDITION, this brings pitched rooflines and more than six million bricks, laid by hand in shifting repetitions across the façade of a fabulous-looking hotel. Inside, visitors are greeted by a spectacular open-air cylinder with a spiral staircase leading up to a viewing platform over the harbor and the mountain.
Rooftop Pool
A corner of Table Mountain seen through a bedroom window
Food and drink options are as dazzling as the architecture, from Shale the signature restaurant to laid-back afternoons and sundowners with music on the rooftop. The mainly South African wine list at Shale is far from being the hotel’s only acknowledgement of an African heritage: rugs woven by Shuttleworth, based in KwaZulu-Natal, are part of the hotel experience, as are the photographs by Zanele Muholi in the wood-panelled Punch Room, Chuma Maweni’s ceramics decorating public spaces and Usha Seejarim’s Fading Dish Cloth, assembled from hundreds of wooden clothes pegs, in the below-sea-level spa.
by Sean Sheehan
For more information and booking see Cape Town EDITION