ME Dubai Lobby
Zaha Hadid's only fully self-designed hotel interior — a fluid white-and-gold lobby set directly beneath the Opus void.
The ME Dubai, which opened in March 2020, occupies the heart of Zaha Hadid's Opus building in Business Bay. It is the only hotel in the world whose architecture and interiors were both designed by Hadid, and the lobby is where that total authorship is most visible.
The lobby sits directly under the Opus's signature void, whose curved glass underside forms a dramatic ceiling above the space. Three storeys of galleries with projecting balconies ring the perimeter, their glass balustrades topped with slim golden edges and tilted back to follow the undulating line of the void above. Gleaming white marble floors run underfoot, offset by curved seating pods upholstered in rich burgundy — the 'Ottomans' by Zaha Hadid Design — while navy-cushioned benches from the same studio's Petalinas collection line the balconies. A curving golden wall wraps behind the angled white reception desks, lit by strips that echo the lighting of the balconies overhead.
Every element, down to the furniture and bathroom fittings elsewhere in the hotel, was drawn from Zaha Hadid Design's language of continuous fluid line, making the lobby a rare fully-realised interior by the late architect rather than a space merely branded with her name.
Exhibo editorial
Most hotel lobbies are somewhere you pass through. This one asks you to look up. The whole room is arranged around the glass underside of the Opus void, so the ceiling isn't a ceiling so much as the inside of the building's missing centre — and everything below it, the tilted balconies, the golden edges, the burgundy pods, bends to match.
What's striking is the consistency. There's no seam between the building and its furniture; the same curve that erodes the cube outside runs through the sofa you're sitting on. It's the closest you can get, at ground level and for the price of a coffee, to standing inside a single uninterrupted Zaha Hadid idea.
Gallery
How to find it
Enter The Opus from the ME Dubai hotel entrance on Al A'amal Street, Business Bay. The lobby is on the ground floor directly beneath the void; the curved glass ceiling overhead is the underside of the building's central opening. The ROKA and other restaurants open off the same level.
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