At Colima 233, in Roma Norte, we transformed a historic residence into a boutique hotel. The project preserves the building’s architectural heritage while recognising that conservation also means keeping it open to transformation. The original building dates from 1915 and is attributed to don José G. de la Lama.
Eclectic in character, with a predominance of Neoclassical elements, the house belongs to an architectural tradition that was itself already a mixture of references. Today, its location is part of one of the most culturally, gastronomically and touristically active areas in the heart of Mexico City.
To transform the residence into a hotel, the building needed to grow and reorganise its programme around new uses. We therefore chose to preserve the original façades while adding a new layer to the existing structure. On the ground floor, the main entrance introduces guests to the building and establishes a direct connection with the restaurant, which includes its own kitchen and dining area. The two upper levels have a more intimate scale, with a lobby conceived as a library that leads to the suites and standard rooms. On the top floor, the new construction incorporates six rooms with private balconies opening towards the tree canopies.
Our interior design approach is based on accumulation and contrast. More than ten families of materials shape the character of the project: stone, timber, marble, terrazzo, textiles, patterns and a range of textures coexist with restored antique furniture and contemporary pieces designed specifically for the hotel. From this encounter emerges an eclectic language. The intention is not to belong to a particular period, but to bring together different historical moments, references and modes of production within the same space.
We sought to recover the sensibility of a past in which ornament, craftsmanship and attention to detail played an essential role. Recovered fragments coexist with new interventions and acquire new meanings within spaces with a theatrical character. As in theatre, architecture sets the stage, but the experience takes place when someone interprets it, observes it and is captivated by it.
Lighting fixtures, headboards and furniture pieces take on different degrees of prominence within each space, while the remaining elements establish the context that supports them. As guests move through the hotel, they encounter a world that does not seek to reconstruct a particular period, but to imagine one.
Recognisable fragments allow the whole to express itself while producing a new reading of the past. The intention was never to make the building appear as though it were a historical photograph, but rather to bring together references, materials and objects from different periods to construct a new interpretation.
The result is an imagined time: a fiction shaped by the nostalgia and enchantment through which we project our imagination onto the past. An architecture that preserves, transforms and values heritage. In this project, the history of art, architecture and the city’s material culture come together within a contemporary experience.
From our perspective as a studio, these decisions express a particular way of understanding architecture. We believe that tradition should not remain untouched, but should be preserved, allowed to evolve and kept relevant. The intervention begins with a question: what can be done today with what remains? And, ultimately, how can an original building be brought into the present without losing its identity.
