Sitting above one of Shanghai's most culturally loaded addresses, where the shikumen lane houses of Xintiandi give way to the glass towers of the new city, Andaz Xintiandi Shanghai has always had to negotiate between two very different versions of what the district represents. The tower, designed by Koichi Takada Architects and completed in 2011, makes that negotiation visible in its curved facade — the building's organic profile, with its distinctive porthole-shaped windows, sets it apart from the orthogonal commercial towers that surround it, and those same curved openings carry through into the suites, where floor-to-ceiling arched glazing frames the Shanghai skyline like a theater aperture. The interiors, led by the Hirsch Bedner Associates team, layer warm macassar ebony paneling and boldly striped multi-species hardwood floors against a chromatic lighting strategy that shifts from deep amber to electric blue depending on the hour. Headboards in lacquered red silk textile bring a Shanghai Art Deco sensibility into rooms that otherwise could belong to any ambitious contemporary property. The Japanese restaurant downstairs takes a different register entirely — pale ash joinery, a dramatic ribbed metal vault overhead, and a sculptural column clad in stacked ceramic vessels that draws more from craft traditions than from the broader hotel's urbane palette. The glass-walled lap pool, with its blue-lit granite surround and mezzanine fitness level visible above, demonstrates the same confidence with theatrical material gesture that defines the property throughout its 307 rooms across 38 floors.

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