LISSONI PARTNERS, AKA HOTEL AND RESIDENCES
Alexandria followed days later from photographing AKA Nomad, autumn deepening into that American October only seen in films. Train from Penn Station to Washington, then an Uber driver who gave an impromptu architecture tour en route. Approaching the hotel, huge panes of glass offered a glimpse of the interior. Something suspended, glowing—the Mamacloud, though from the back of the car, it was impossible to articulate what it was yet.
The leaves had turned. Where Nomad inserted contemporary restraint into Manhattan's grid, Alexandria worked differently. Adaptive reuse of an existing hotel in Old Town's brick-lined streets, twenty minutes south of the capital. The approach shifts immediately.
Walking into reception, you're cocooned in darkness, but it doesn't feel heavy. Artwork catches first. Lissoni's sense of humour is surfacing. This one was bigger, more ambitious. Everywhere, his designs appeared. Furniture, coffee tables, glass cabinets. Not just specified but designed. His hand is more visible here than anywhere.
The bar operates as the project's centre. Intimate corners, low seating, then Gehry's Mamacloud fully revealed. What had been glimpsed from the street is now impossible to look away from. At night, it glows across the road, a sculptural presence that anchors the entire space. Everything else defers to it.
But Alexandria felt like the place where Lissoni had permission to show more of himself. The humour, the ambition, the sheer density of authorship. Nomad had been the door opening. Alexandria was walking through it.
