Departures India Autumn 2019

DEPARTURES TRAVEL

DEPARTURES TRAVEL CONTINENTAL GLAM 16 The first-floor Vikissimo restaurant offers views into Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II; below: a guest room designed by Spanish artist Felipe Cardeña “I WAS AT a birthday party in Monaco when I got the tip,” said hotelier Alex Vik, describing the genesis of what would become Galleria Vik Milano, a rapturously art-filled, 89-room hotel inside a Milan landmark. “I drove to the site and knew immediately what we would do.” The property stood inside the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Italy’s oldest shopping plaza and home to many of its iconic fashion brands. “I couldn’t find the entrance,” said Alex. “That was the first thing we needed to change,” added his wife and business partner, Carrie. The Viks have been in the hotel business for ten years, and have become known for their six stylish properties in Uruguay and Chile. College sweethearts, the couple, now in their sixties, have made their name synonymous with destinations in jawdropping landscapes where they offer impeccable service, exquisite food and their own label of award-winning Chilean wines. They had never opened a Vik retreat outside South America, in a city or in an existing structure – nor had they ever built a hotel with more than 23 rooms. Milan was not in their plans. TownHouse Galleria, the property they bought, occupied the northwestern arm of the fivestorey, glass-ceilinged mall, which opened shortly after its namesake became the king of unified Italy in 1861. During the Vik’s six-month renovation, workers created a formidable entrance befitting the grand locale. With their usual flair for drama, the couple placed a bronze cast of Rodin’s The Thinker in the entryway and decorated the foyer with a floor-to-ceiling fresco depicting Amazons, Titans and other mythological beings holding up the world. Even visitors accustomed to the city’s heroic imagery stop in their tracks. The hotel is also accessible from the Galleria’s arcade, where an entry that feeds though a private courtyard leads to SPOtto, the first of two restaurants headed by Uruguayan chef Marcelo Betancourt. The Viks brought the talented Betancourt, who oversees the restaurants at all three Uruguayan Vik Retreats, to impart “our way of doing things”, according to Carrie. SPOtto is a lively tapas and wine bar, while Vikissimo, on the hotel’s first floor, offers drinks, dancing and food along with a view of the Galleria’s massive central dome. It’s in the guest rooms, however, that the Viks’ eye-popping, occasionally outrageous aesthetic truly comes to life. The couple converted the existing hotel into suites, each with wildly distinct decor – midcentury, antique and contemporary furniture plus oneof-a-kind artworks and installations by local and international artists. One suite features Uruguayan painter Eduardo Cardozo’s pastel-coloured canvases moulded into drapery-like shapes, juxtaposed with original 19thcentury painted ceilings. In another, an installation by street artist Felipe Cardeña consists of harlequin wall hangings, upholstery and paintings made from a patchwork of chromatic textiles and textures. In the hallways, artists have painted directly onto the walls, creating abstract kaleidoscopic murals that usher guests to and from their rooms. Here the Viks continue to define what it means to “live with art”, as they like to say. In buying the old hotel, the Viks also acquired one of Milan’s bestkept secrets: I Dodici Gatti, a classic pizzeria – named for 12 legendary stray cats – nestled into the steelwork of the arcade’s roof. Every night, inthe-know locals enjoy wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas and homemade mozzarella – a remarkably good pairing with Viña Vik wines. galleriavikmilano.com © VIK RETREATS

Divine Inspiration Antwerp’s celebrated designer Vincent Van Duysen stays close to home for his first hotel project, inside a former convent. by Gisela Williams. Photographs by David De Vleeschauwer NINETEEN YEARS AGO, Mouche Van Hool, a former interior designer, opened Hotel Julien in two adjacent 16th-century mansions in the Old City of Antwerp. With its smart design and eclectic mix of Art Deco and midcentury-modern decor, the property quickly became a magnet for the fashion and design crowd that has made the city Europe’s avant-garde capital. A few years ago, having noticed that her town’s hotel scene hadn’t kept pace with its international influence, Van Hool decided to open a second hotel, this time in a historic convent within a former military hospital complex. Turning the elegant but dilapidated Flemishstyle buildings, which had been empty for 20 years, into a luxury hotel would require a particular Antwerpian ingenuity, so Van Hool reached out to one of the city’s best-known designers, Vincent Van Duysen. From left: the August Bar; Hotel August’s historic brick façade “I knew he could bring the space back to life,” Van Hool told me. However, while Van Duysen, the 57-yearold art director of Molteni&C | Dada, is known for spare yet transcendent high-end residences around the world, as well as commissions by companies like B&B Italia and Swarovski, he had never designed a hotel (despite being asked to several times). “I was thrilled that my first hotel project would be in my hometown,” said the designer, who counts Julianne Moore and Kim Kardashian among his clients. He was also excited by the challenge of repurposing a sacred historical space that had sat unused for decades. According to Van Duysen, the cloister, once inhabited by nuns of the Order of Saint Augustine, still felt “spiritual in some way”. The renovation was “intense”, he added, “but we treated the rooms with respect and kept many original features”, URBAN OASIS 17 DEPARTURES