Buenos Aires
With his first hotel in South America open for business, designer Philippe Starck shares his favorite places in Argentina's seductive capital
By Kate Novack

JUAN HITTERS / SUR PRESS FOR TIME El Bistro, a restaurant in the new Starck-designed Faena Hotel + Universe

Summer 2005 Style & Design
Phillippe Starck may be the only contemporary designer whose website requires its own search engine. That's because the prolific Frenchman, 56, has created everything from tech toys to teddy bears to a pasta shape—not to mention all those fabulous hotels, clubs and restaurants from Miami to Hong Kong. Now he has launched his first project in South America: the new Faena Hotel + Universe, an 83-room converted grain silo in Buenos Aires. The experience has made him an expert of sorts on the Argentine capital, at least when it comes to sipping espresso and strolling cobblestone streets. The neighborhood where the Faena sits, for instance, is in the Puerto Madero Este district, a revitalized warehouse area. And that's only the starting point. Starck's interest in the city is as varied as his designs. So he's drawn to a string of traditional grill restaurants along the Río de la Plata, despite the fact that he doesn't eat meat. "You have on one side of the corridor the grill, on the other side the table," he says. "I am a vegetarian, but this is the real thing." He's also a fan of Café Tortoni, downtown Buenos Aires' legendary literati hangout (Jorge Luis Borges was a regular) and tourist mainstay. The wood paneling and red leather chairs recall the city's turn-of-the-century heyday, when it was dubbed the Paris of South America.

The cobblestone alleys and faded colonial architecture of the San Telmo district, another Starck favorite, go back to an even earlier time. Until the yellow-fever epidemic in 1871 pushed Buenos Aires society to the Recoleta, San Telmo was the city's poshest residential neighborhood. Today it's packed with antique shops, street performers and open-air markets. It's also the birthplace of the tango, and locals carry on the tradition alfresco. "That's why I love Argentinian people," says Starck, "because they can just dance on the sidewalk—not to make a show but because there's an expression in dancing." Starck chooses not to express himself on the dance floor but has spent some time at La Catedral, a tango club on the second floor of an unmarked warehouse—which provided some inspiration when it came to appointing the Faena's in-house cabaret.

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