At 245 Hennepin Avenue, a 36-story curtain-wall tower rises above Minneapolis's North Loop at dusk, its dark glass skin absorbing the burnt-orange sky before giving it back fractured and luminous. The Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis, which claimed floors 23 through 30 of the mixed-use RBC Gateway development when it opened in 2022, earns its altitude honestly — floor-to-ceiling windows in all 222 rooms and suites frame the city's low-slung grid and the Mississippi corridor beyond, making the view an architectural argument in itself. Smallwood handled both the building's design and the hotel interiors, threading a material palette drawn from Minnesota's industrial and natural heritage through the guest floors: brass-accented wood paneling, dark timber detailing, and a curated program of locally commissioned artwork that keeps the rooms from feeling like they could belong to any city. The restaurants bring a different register entirely. AvroKO — the New York studio behind some of the more atmospherically considered hospitality interiors of the past decade — designed Mara, Socca, and the Riva Terrace Bar, and the dining room shown here demonstrates their characteristic layering: a coffered brass ceiling structure, globe pendants suspended on branching armatures, velvet barrel chairs in terracotta and amber, and an open kitchen framed by an arched bronze hood. It has the warmth of a Milanese brasserie recalibrated for the Midwest. Above it all, the outdoor pool terrace sits at mid-tower, the downtown skyline stacked behind it like a postcard the building earned the right to send.

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