Woodhead Architecture Magazine - All about Architecture

Woodhead

Architecture Magazine - All about Architecture

It’s amazing how you can find inspiration in the most unlikely places.

Through more luck than good management I found myself in a fabulous hotel in Cambodia. The town of Siem Reap is home to the beautiful temples of Angkor Wat and is a magnet for all kinds of tourists and, if Hollywood is to be believed, bust tomb-raiding babes.

Hotel de la Paix, surprises on many fronts. The first surprise is in the stark contrast to the mayhem of the streets outside. It’s like an alien race of chilled-out maharishi has parachuted an oasis of calm down into what can only be described as stinking, noisesome chaos.

The Zen-like calm begins in the foyer. It’s not your typical large lobby or grand colonial statement, a bit disorientating for your usual traveller expecting a lobby and registration deck, but nice, artistic and quirky.

Checking in is often a make or break moment for hotels;- the slightest hiccup can play merry hell with a tired and emotional traveller who has just spent 16 hours on a plane and nearly died twice on the tuktuk trip through the porte-cochere. The Hotel de la Paix defuses this potenti8al timebomb by quickly ushering us into a spacious bar called the Art Lounge. No sooner can you say ‘aperitif’, we were kicking back and supping on something delicious, cold and with a lime twist. It is a low-key way to be registered but perfect for the setting.

The room heralded a whole new world of pleasant surprises, so much so I had to double check we weren’t on the receiving end of a mystery upgrade. The room was spacious, contemporary and functional. Smack in the middle is a giant white terrazzo bath - big enough for a pool party and demands a serious workout. The only blot to the landscape is the central ‘big telly’, looking unrefined with its timber back facing into the bathroom.

The hotel checks all the ‘serenity’ boxes with a fabulous central courtyard - the nexus of the hotel design. Glazed doors allow access to the Art Lounge and restaurant, while a colonnade runs down one side opening out to a landscaped space with fountains, figurines, nooks and crannies. A huge fig tree shades a burbling pond, which at night had four gas lights at each corner. This quadrangle is one of the nicest, most tranquil spaces I have ever encountered. If anything epitomised the utter contrast of the chaos outside with the creative, tranquil serenity inside, this was it. It was with real reluctance that I dragged myself away… but I had a very special dinner to attend… in the colonnade.

The colonnade had one of the quirkiest but ingenious things I’ve ever seen - swinging dinner tables and daybeds. These were interspaced down the colonnade with ornamental pendant lights and tropical fans. All up, you have an alfresco dining area like no other. Popular? You could hardly get a berth as they were booked out for four days.

Like everyone else in the hotel, the reason for being at Siem Reap was the temples, but to the hotel’s credit I didn’t want to leave. Nevertheless, after a long day of treasure hunting and sightseeing, Hotel de la Paix was a haven - truly a sight for sore eyes. Paix is French for ‘peace’. Yep, they got that right.