La Concha Renaissance San Juan Resort, also known as La Concha Resort, is a historic luxury resort located at the
Condado oceanfront within the district of
Santurce in
San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan (, , ; Spanish for "Saint John") is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the juri ...
.
History
The La Concha Hotel opened in December 1958 during the ''Tropical Modernism Movement''. The hotel was publicly owned, by the government of Puerto Rico, and managed by the US-based Associated Federal Hotels chain. The main hotel building was designed by architects Osvaldo Toro and Miguel Ferrer, of the firm
Toro Ferrer
Toro y Ferrer was an architectural firm and one of the principal exponents of Puerto Rico's tropical modernism. Founded in 1945 by Osvaldo Toro FAIA (1914–1995), Miguel Ferrer FAIA (1914–2005) and Luis Torregrosa Casellas, the firm designed ...
. The two men had previously designed the first modern luxury resort in San Juan, the
Caribe Hilton
The Caribe Hilton is located in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and is owned by Park Hotels & Resorts and managed by Hilton Worldwide.
History
In early 1946, as part of the Puerto Rican industrialization effort known as Operation Bootstrap, the Puerto R ...
. Another part of the complex, the
seashell-inspired building for the restaurant ''La
Perla'', was designed by architect
Mario Salvadori
Mario G. Salvadori (March 19, 1907 – June 25, 1997)Goldberger, Paul (June 28, 1997) ''The New York Times''. was an American structural engineer and professor of both civil engineering and architecture at Columbia University.
Early life
Sal ...
. The hotel's design incorporated tropical climate features such as cross-ventilation, natural illumination, open lobbies and seamless transitions between inside and outside spaces, with details supposedly relevant to Island traditions: an interior patio, blinds, a mirador encompassing both the sea and the city and the use of water throughout as a leitmotif. The protective concrete element in the façade, called brise-soleil in French or “quiebrasol” in Spanish, is an architectural element used by famed architect Le Corbusier. The purpose of the “quiebrasol” is to filter the sun's rays towards the interior corridors.
In 1973, the La Concha Hotel was united with the adjacent
Condado Beach Hotel into one hotel, known as the Hyatt Puerto Rico. In 1976, management of the complex was taken over by Hilton International and the resort was renamed the Condado Beach La Concha Convention Center, with a huge convention wing built between the two existing hotel structures to physically connect them. The complex was later taken over by
Carnival Cruise Line
Carnival Cruise Line is an international cruise line with headquarters in Doral, Florida. The company is a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc. Its logo is a funnel shaped like a whale's tail, with a red, white, and blue color scheme. This ...
and renamed The Condado Beach Trio, before the La Concha wing was closed in 1995, followed by the closure of the Condado Beach wing in 1997.
The government-owned properties sat vacant for years, and were finally severed in 2004. The convention center that joined them was demolished to build a public park.
The La Concha reopened in December 2007 after a $220 million renovation,
managed by
Renaissance Hotels as La Concha Renaissance San Juan Resort.
In the summer of 2010, the hotel opened a $100 million addition called The Suites Tower which features an atrium style building with one and two bedroom suites, kitchens, architectural lighting, and amenities. The hotel's ''Casino del Mar'' is located on the street level of the new tower.
See also
*
List of hotels in Puerto Rico
References
External links
*
{{Coord, 18, 27, 26, N, 66, 04, 26, W, type:landmark_region:PR, display=title
1958 establishments in Puerto Rico
Hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico
Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Renaissance Hotels
Condado (Santurce)
Hotels established in 1958
Hotel buildings completed in 1958