The blank façades of the Ritz Carlton diminish the hotel image

Was published in Jakarta Post on Sunday October 7, 2007

The Ritz Carlton Hotel and Apartment Complex at Mega Kuningan was completed in 2005. In a relatively small roundabout, the Ritz Carlton is the first part of several stages of future development of a mix-used complex for retail, commercial and office towers. The hotel was built on a circular shape lot, in the center of the Mega Kuningan complex, a spot I assumed was reserved for green area.

Located in front of the JW Marriott Hotel, the new complex consists of two skinny 48 floors sleek glass towers with a gothic style base building which serve as the lobby and main reception of the main tower. When you drive into the hotel, after going through the security checkpoint, you will have to drive up the ramp to get to the hotel lobby at the rear side of the building. At this point, you will notice a large blank wall on the side of the building.

Furthermore, another blank wall is to be found on the other side of the hotel. Both of these blank facades are easily visible if you go along the circular road. The blank facades appear to be too contrasting with the heavily decorated front and rear face of the hotel. I am assuming that these blank walls will be demolished to connect with the future extension.

However, two years has passed by and having to stare at these large empty walls since the completion of the hotel is not an attractive experience. Personally, the blank facades are damaging the overall image of the hotel and considered as the worst façade design in the city.

Imagine that the hotel is like a left over piece of a layered cake on an almost empty plate waiting to be taken away. Being a left over is already bad enough for the layered cake, but the sliced side of the layered cake is more attractive than the hotel’s blank wall. Having blank facades on the side is equivalent to typical manner in residential design in Jakarta, where enclosing the side and rear façade is a necessity for privacy and security reasons.

Ritz Carlton is not as introvert as a private house. It is situated in a public domain where all facades, especially at the lower level, are engaging the public realm. The blank facades are more suitable for other types of building that requires less natural light such as parking garage, storage or even a grade B shopping mall.

These blank facades also contradict with its classical style where ornamentation always wraps around the building. These walls made the building appear like a decorated shed, where the ornamentation is merely a decorative illusion to conceal the interior, the kind that you always find in a cowboy movie.

Designed by Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart & Associates (SRSAA), an international architecture firm based in Atlanta, USA, the blank facades suggest ignorance and a lack of effort in blending with the urban context and public domain. They also diminish the elegance of one of the prestigious hotel in the city.

Caption for the two images:

“The two blank facades of the Ritz Carlton Hotel + Apartment”

All images are by Zenin Adrian