Mexico babylon

Architectural Review, The, August, 1994 by Edward Crombie

Puerto Vallarta was a small and delightful port on the generous Bay of Banderas which opens into the Pacific on the west coast of Mexico in the tropical state of Jalisco. It is still sheltered by delightful little hills covered with groves of coconut palms and commands wonderful views of the mountain range that forms the southern edge of the bay.

But in the 1980s, there was a huge boom in the tourist industry which found its outlet in the construction of an unplanned urban outburst on the flat marshy land to the north of the town, round the mouth of the Ameco river. In contrast to the gentle elegance of the original place (scarcely 100 years old even now), the new development was strident, with large and vulgar buildings jostling with each other to attract the attention of tourists and pack them in as tightly as possible.

When the Barcelona firm MBM were offered a commission to build the Hotel Melia on a 6ha site by the beach in this new area, their basic strategy was predicated by the surrounding chaos and the magnificent view of the mountains across the bay. The architects determined to form a perimeter band of building, turned inwards away from the surroundings, and to open the central space so created to the sea and view by omitting buildings on the south west side of the site.

The resulting plan is U-shaped, with the main public spaces collected in a square node in the northern corner. This is flanked by two 10-storey towers, which help increase density while leaving the central garden free of construction (more than 400 lettable rooms were required).

The five-storey perimeter walls are made up of guest rooms which face into the garden and have their circulation galleries on the outside. The south-eastern wing is shorter than its opposite number so that diagonal southward glimpses of the old town can be obtained over the very large irregular swimming pool which the architects have placed in the southern corner of the garden.

The garden has a coconut promenade over a broad lawn parallel to the beach. This is connected to the lobby block by a wide tree-shaded path flanked by masses of tropical vegetation. Where promenade, axial path and swimming pool come together, there is a cluster of palapas, traditional grass roofed shelters covering partly open-air restaurants. Diagonally opposite, in the eastern corner of the great court, there is a lake with a wonderfully richly planted island, and a garden that gives guests in lower rooms privacy from the more busy parts of the inner landscape.

Rather to the architects' chagrin, the walls which surround the garden are composed of conventional international hotel rooms: MBM suggested other configurations of room which they thought more attractive, but the client, a large international hotelier, cautiously stuck to the standard formula.

But the client was happy to accept ideas about energy conservation in the organisation of the public areas. Guest rooms are air-conditioned, but the galleries from which you reach them are cooled by a mixture of shading and natural convection devices.

Concern with natural cooling is continued in the great set-piece of the hotel, the lobby. This square double-height space is roofed with 49 modules, each 8.25m by 8.25m, supported by 8m high columns in each corner. A concrete pyramid with a little perforated tower and a glass lid crowns each module.

These structures ventilate and cool the whole 4000[m.sup.2] space by convection and entrainment effects. No air-conditioning is needed.

The roof filters light, ensuring that the people in the great volume are aware of sunlight without being exposed to glare. Along the sides of the lobby, vertical and horizontal screens allow views of the garden and air penetration. The organisation of the space, with its grand stair that rises through tall palm trees to the upper level, has a touch of D.W. Griffith at his most Babylonian -- but perhaps that is what grand hotels are about, and what makes the place more than just a machine for processing tourists.