The Great Gatsby had just screened in Cannes when property mogul Alan Faena first asked its director Baz Luhrmann to turn his hand to interior design.
Faena had recently bought Miami’s 1940s Saxony Hotel and wanted to restore it to its former glory.
Luhrmann was a fitting choice of collaborator for a man masterminding the Gatsby-esque, $1 billion transformation of an entire neighbourhood of the city. The Faena Hotel Miami Beach – as it is now called – soft launched last week and will soon be joined by a residential complex, galleries and public plaza, collectively known as the Faena District.
‘[Faena] does in reality what we tend to only do in film,’ Luhrmann recently told Travel + Leisure.
The director worked with his costume designer wife Catherine Martin on the creative vision for the hotel, alongside Faena and his wife Ximena Caminos. ‘Baz edited the architecture, like film,’ said Caminos to The Hollywood Reporter. ‘We altered the architecture based on his “camera”.’
Luhrmann is the latest in a trio of film titans who have recently designed real-life ‘sets’. Here, we venture inside the Faena Hotel, as well as Wes Anderson’s Bar Luce in Milan and David Lynch’s Silencio club in Paris.
Faena Hotel Miami Beach
Baz Luhrmann and his collaborators have evoked Miami Beach’s 1950s heyday at the Faena Hotel, while giving it a modern spin. Guests enter into the ‘Cathedral’, a vast lobby lined with gold columns and lush tropical murals by artist Juan Gatti. The ‘Living Room’, meanwhile, is kitted out like a movie set, with red leather armchairs, animal prints and lashings of lacquer. Faena Hotel comes equipped with 169 rooms and suites, as well as a 22,000 sq ft spa and a revolving program of art that kicked off during Art Basel Miami Beach. 3201 Collins Avenue Miami Beach, FL 33140
Faena Hotel Miami Beach
Baz Luhrmann and his collaborators have evoked Miami Beach’s 1950s heyday at the Faena Hotel, while giving it a modern spin. Guests enter into the ‘Cathedral’, a vast lobby lined with gold columns and lush tropical murals by artist Juan Gatti. The ‘Living Room’, meanwhile, is kitted out like a movie set, with red leather armchairs, animal prints and lashings of lacquer. Faena Hotel comes equipped with 169 rooms and suites, as well as a 22,000 sq ft spa and a revolving program of art that kicked off during Art Basel Miami Beach. 3201 Collins Avenue Miami Beach, FL 33140
Bar Luce, Milan
Wes Anderson drew inspiration from 1950s Milanese cafés for Bar Luce at the Fondazione Prada in Milan, which opened last spring. His design was inspired by two films from the golden age of Italian cinema: 1951’s Miracolo a Milano and 1960’s Rocco e i Suoi Fratelli. The colour palette of the pink terrazzo flooring, formica furniture and architectural wallpaper echoes those of his heavily stylised films, including The Grand Hotel Budapest. ‘While I do think it would make a pretty good movie set,’ Anderson explained, ‘I think it would be an even better place to write a movie. I tried to make it a bar I would want to spend my own non-fictional afternoons in.’ Largo Isarco, 2, 20139 Milan
Photography: Attilio Maranzano, courtesy of Fondazione Prada
Bar Luce, Milan
Wes Anderson drew inspiration from 1950s Milanese cafés for Bar Luce at the Fondazione Prada in Milan, which opened last spring. His design was inspired by two films from the golden age of Italian cinema: 1951’s Miracolo a Milano and 1960’s Rocco e i Suoi Fratelli. The colour palette of the pink terrazzo flooring, formica furniture and architectural wallpaper echoes those of his heavily stylised films, including The Grand Hotel Budapest. ‘While I do think it would make a pretty good movie set,’ Anderson explained, ‘I think it would be an even better place to write a movie. I tried to make it a bar I would want to spend my own non-fictional afternoons in.’ Largo Isarco, 2, 20139 Milan
Photography: Attilio Maranzano, courtesy of Fondazione Prada
Silencio, Paris
David Lynch took cues from Club Silencio in his film Mulholland Drive when creating this private members’ club-cum-salon in Paris back in 2011. Everything from the 1950s furniture to the black toilet bowls was conceived by the man himself and designed to ‘induce and sustain a specific state of alertness and openness to the unknown’. 142 rue Montmartre 75002 Paris
Photography: Alexandre Guirkinger
