The Calile Hotel
Richards and Spence
A new hotel in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley is evocative of luxury tropical resorts yet also carefully assimilates into the emerging urban character of the James Street precinct.
On occasion, an architect is able to work iteratively over an extended period in such a way that their architecture comes to define the character of a place. We are thinking of Jože Plečnik by the river in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Luigi Snozzi’s seven rules for the village of Monte Carasso, Switzerland, Fumihiko Maki’s work over fifty years at Hillside Terrace, Tokyo or, more recently, Gion A. Caminada’s tactical rejuvenation at Vrin, Switzerland.
To the above list, we would add Richards and Spence’s James Street precinct in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. Since 2012, the architects have been working with brick, concrete and stone to develop an alternative vernacular to the traditional use of timber and tin.
This way of making is also a form of resistance to the otherwise rapid cycle of contemporary city-making. It seeks longevity and the embodiment of knowledge within material things.
Walking the precinct, the words of Adolf Loos in On Thrift (1924) come to mind: “Luxury is a very necessary thing … Every attempt to reduce the lifespan of an object is a mistake. On the contrary, we must raise the lifespan of the things we produce.”
Within this context, the focus of our gaze is the Calile Hotel, the latest and largest of the eight projects by Richards and Spence in the precinct.
It is an L-shaped perimeter block form rising to six storeys above a two-storey podium. The building completes the eastern end of the city block that defines the emerging character of the James Street precinct. The podium has three frontages to public streets, while the fourth activates the recently completed through-site link known as Ada Lane.
In publication, the project is often referred to as an urban resort. This nomenclature gives us pause – if the essence of urbanity is proximity and inclusivity, the term “resort” implies exclusivity. In recent times, this conflict has resulted in simulacra public spaces crafted in service to vested interest, that effectively disenfranchise those without capital. It is evident the architects have recognized this conflict and worked within the limits of their role to engender civic-mindedness. This is apparent in the generosity of the materials, detailing and planting of the street interface, the prominent clocktower, the cruciform porosity of the podium and the grandeur of the stair to the pool deck.
From the street
Arrival at the hotel lobby is facilitated either via the low porte-cochère or the wonderful lofty and sculptural arcade off James Street. Entering the hotel in that manner, beneath the improbably levitating concrete awning and the heft of the 710-millimetre-thick arch in white brick, the space lifts and squeezes.
A small balcony clad in travertine – for plants, not people – is momentarily overhead, imperceptible. There is daylight above and far beyond, sliding across and extinguishing itself quickly on the roughformworked concrete soffit. The slow arc of the day spa above, again in travertine, gives space and is punctuated with fine-framed glass boxes. Below, at the height of a person, the shop frontage turns the corner from the street and into the space.
As a whole, it is a magnificent plastic composition reminiscent of the back side of Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp, or something Enric Miralles might have concocted. More locally, though no less significant, the conflation of interior and exterior building elements evokes the manner of Donovan Hill.
A small building within a large building Later, by the pool, we sit within one of the seven cabanas, the roof a mass slab of concrete. Within,