Hesperia Tower — Barcelona

Hesperia Tower:

www.hesperia-tower.com

Barcelona’s Hesperia Tower hotel, designed by Richard Rogers Partnership, is a somewhat controversial skyscraper whose architecture and design are reason enough to make it a destination hotel. This imposing monolith, with a glass-honeycomb-domed restaurant perched on top like a visiting UFO, towers 104 metres high. It also features a second restaurant ‘Bouquet’ on the second floor, with a suspended bar above it.

It’s a sleek mix of sheet glass and black marble against industrial scaffolding and sexy lighting, most notably in the form of a swirling fibre-optic lamp sculpture in the lobby, and glass lifts on the outside of the building. Hesperia Tower is arranged in an L shape, the tower forming the upright of the L, and the conference centre and support facilities forming the horizontal section. A 30m-high glazed atrium connects the two, while the aforementioned glass dome perches atop the whole structure.

The 280 rooms include one presidential suite and 41 suites decorated in rich chocolate-browns and wine hues, with Moroccan tassels, silk bedspreads and the odd chunk of crystal. And like all good five-star hotels you also get a pillow menu.