A concept by Exe.Eyes Labs. Not affiliated with Aman. Photograph © Aman.
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A house of cast stone in the high desert of southern Utah. Its spaces in Aman’s own photographs, and its real ground under the real sun of one day, which is yours to move.
Stillness
IIStillness
In the high desert of Utah a house of cast stone sits so low against the rock that you see it late. Water wraps the escarpment , the rooms turn to the mesas , and the day does the rest.
- Opened
- 2009
- Land
- 900+ acres
- Suites
- 34
- Elevation
- 1,236 m
IIIThe spaces
Six places, one stone.
Hover to look. Open to walk through. Photographs © Aman.
IVInside, outside
Step
inside.
Thirty-four suites in two wings, every one turned to the desert. Concrete outside, the same sand-coloured calm within: the window is the wall you look at.
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Outside · the terrace
Inside · the room
VBefore Amangiri
- 1933Adrian Zecha is born in Sukabumi, in what was then the Dutch East Indies.
- 1956He reports for Time, from its Tokyo office.
- 1961He launches Asia Magazine.
- 1972He co-founds Regent International Hotels.
- 1988Amanpuri opens on Phuket.
It began
as a house.
Looking for a site for a holiday home on Phuket, Zecha found a coconut plantation above Pansea Beach. The house became a small hotel, built with his friend Anil Thadani on their own money, because banks would not lend on so few rooms. Amanpuri opened in January 1988 with forty.
Today Aman has 36 properties in 20 countries.
VIThe road in
Arrive
slowly.
From Page, the drive is about twenty-five minutes. The road runs low across the sage toward a line of pale concrete at the foot of the escarpment, and you see the buildings late: they are the colour of the ground they stand on.
- From Page Municipal Airport
- ~25 min
- Land
- 900+ acres
- Elevation
- 1,236 m
VIIThe name
The house’s own reading of its name, from the Sanskrit.
Aman1peace
giri2mountain
Between them: Tower Butte, above Lake Powell · Photograph © Aman
VIIIThe building
Cast stone,
or frozen sand.
Marwan Al-Sayed, Wendell Burnette and Rick Joy cast the walls in place, working the mix and the finish out on site so the buildings would read as cast stone or frozen sand. Two wings of suites run out from the Pavilion; the pool wraps the rock.
Our aim was to build something that was a contemporary interpretation of native Indian architecture.
Adrian Zecha
- Opened
- 2009
- Suites
- 34
- Spa
- 25,000 sq ft
- Contours
- every 2 m
IXMaterials
Four materials, one sun.
Four close views of the same place, path-traced at nine hours of one day. Move the sun and all four turn with it.
XThe pool
Water,
around a stone.
The pool is laid around the escarpment, not the other way round. Here the whole day was path-traced, from the dark before dawn to the lamps: one hundred and one frames. Hold the sun and take it anywhere.
Drag across the water to move the day.
XIOut there
The land is the room.
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XIIThe spa
Water,
slowly.
Twenty-five thousand square feet in five pavilions, each built around water: a mineral pool for water shiatsu, a wooden sauna, sound baths. The wet rooms are sculpted and lit; the dry rooms are lined in wood.
- Pavilions
- 5
- Area
- 25,000 sq ft
XIIIA stay
Three days,
by the sun.
Times computed for Canyon Point.
XIVSince 1988
The Aman
world.
1Amanpuri, 1988
Shaded: where it is night, right now. Hover a place.
XVDusk
The lamps
are lit.
At the Pavilion the rock takes the sun long before the horizon would. The lamps come on, the walls give back the day’s warmth, the glass glows from inside and the pool lights from below.
XVILast light
The last ray
of the day.
Out on the sand stands a wall with our mark cut through it, turned to the sun at the minute the plateau takes it. Only the light that passes through the cut reaches the wall behind.