Capella Ixtapa: Forget Where You Came From

With 2012 safely behind us, it’s time to once again in the same breath celebrate nature and Central American temples. Entering its second year of operation in December, the Hotel Capella Ixtapa has been waiting in the wings. The 59-room, hotel, designed by Enrique Muller and Santiago Aspe in a contemporary Mexican beach style, slides right into it its unmistakable landscape with a cresting wave form thats curls up a hill and interprets the waves below. It’s a view best enjoyed from the private plunge pool in each room. “The decorator kept reminding us that the beach is always a sensual place while mountains are more visual” says Maria Elena Checa, one of the  owners, of the elemental battles that informed the hotel’s contruction. “It’s for this reason that straight lines and angles are avoided in favor of curves—even the walls of the rooms mimic the waves of the ocean.”

The interiors are fabricated with a panoply of indigenous materials and techniques, many of the populated by the letters “x” and “p.” There are palm-roofed palapas, sisal rugs and ixtle beach bags in each ofthe rooms. And Mexican handicrafts—clay pots, decorative plates, cushions embroidered by communities in Chiapas—force even the most dedicated tourist to remember that they’re not just part of a natural economy, but a labor economy, too. serve as a constant reminder of your location. Traditional molcajetes (mortars and pestles) are presented on pedestals and incorporated into installations, alongside contemporary work  by Yvonne Domenge, Mary Stuart, Edna Pallares, and Jan Hendrix, most of which are organic forms inspired by natural objects such as coral and native ferns. You might even forget where you came from.