The Conrad Hotel in Beijing by MAD Architects

With its fluid appearance, the project for the new hotel chain in Beijing Conrad is another example of the architecture of “slow design” that MAD Architects held in the dizzying China. Inspired by the Seagram Building, the architects have designed this new building from the digital distortion of the legendary New York skyscraper Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson created in the 50s. It is envisaged that the new hotel should open Conrad Beijing in 2011.
The first skyscraper in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century emerged as a technological solution to the shortage of land and were a challenge of technology while overcoming a symbol of capitalism. The skyscraper in the China of today has become just a soulless concrete machine, quickly built almost like a commodity of mass production.

Attempting to create a building with personal expression to flee from the mere reproduction of large vertical buildings, the architects of MAD have tried to give a new sense of aesthetics to Conrad hotel chain in Beijing. Located between bland concrete skyscrapers, the new building is the result of a “slow design.” From digital distortion of the photograph of Seagram Building, the architects have designed a facade as a nerve tissue, organic skin surrounding a volume of simple forms and gives it a liquid that rescues from anonymity.

Located in the city’s financial center, close to some of the most famous tourist attractions and one of the areas of upscale boutiques, the new hotel Conrad Beijing will have nearly 57,000 square meters that will house 300 luxury rooms, spa , fully equipped meeting rooms and several restaurants.