Pressed against the edge of Jing'an Park in the heart of Shanghai's most quietly moneyed district, a 25-storey tower clad in dark glass and pale stone fins announced something different when The PuLi Hotel and Spa opened in 2009 — not the flamboyant spectacle that defined so much of the city's hospitality boom, but a studied restraint that placed it closer to Tokyo than to the Bund. The interiors, conceived by Tokyo-based designer Layan Design Group under the direction of Koichiro Ikebuchi, draw a deliberate line between Chinese material culture and Japanese spatial discipline, producing 229 rooms that feel composed rather than decorated. The guest rooms layer wenge-stained timber joinery, textured headboard panels in what appears to be grass cloth or cork, and open bathroom geometries framed in slate-grey tile — each element weighted against white-plastered walls with the kind of precision that makes the city skyline beyond the blinds feel almost incidental. The restaurant at ground level turns its full glass facade toward the park's tree canopy, bronze Tom Dixon Beat pendants anchoring the ceiling above dark-wood dining chairs and herringbone parquet floors. Most arresting is the indoor pool, lined in pale jade mosaic tile and flanked by a colonnade of slender white piers with hanging paper lanterns, the dark louvred ceiling pressing the volume low and still — a room that feels closer to a contemplative bath-house than to any conventional hotel amenity.

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