Wisconsin Award-Winning Architecture Honored

Not Your College Kid’s Spring Break Hotel
AQUA Hotel & Resort in Cancun caters to elegant lifestyle; implements Caribbean, Mayan themes
The AQUA Hotel & Resort on the Yucatan Peninsula in Cancun, Mexico, is a boutique resort located on the Caribbean Sea that touts itself as a place of “un-spring break” amenities. The 300,000-square-foot beachfront luxury resort, which targets families, couples, and singles, features amenities such as aromatherapy based on the local Mayan culture, pools and views that take advantage of the Caribbean Sea, and music for every mood. The 10-story white concrete and glass exterior is curved to face the sea. Its sides angle inward, providing a winged shape, as the levels stagger downward towards the sea like a staircase, representing the steps of a Mayan pyramid. Grupo Posadas relaunched the structure and site last February as the AQUA Hotel & Resort.

Jean Nouvel, in Context
“The Louvre is not in Paris. It’s in Abu Dhabi.” So said 2008 Pritzker Prize winning architect Jean Nouvel, Hon. FAIA, at the National Building Museum on June 3. Archiblogger Zach Mortice says he’s inclined to believe Nouvel: If anyone can figure out how to manage the geographic and cultural dislocation of applying the name of the world’s most famous museum to a place continents away, it’s probably Nouvel. The architect’s lecture (part of the Building Museum’s Spotlight on Design series) reaffirmed his status as a masterfully expressive contextualist whose buildings are nearly self-contained geographical, historical, and cultural lesson plans. Join Zach as he explores Nouvel’s work.
(Pictured is the Tour de Verre, under construction adjacent to MOMA in New York City. Graphics courtesy of Ateliers Jean Nouvel.)