This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
World Design Spotlight: Vallier Palace
The historic centre of Valencia, one of the largest in Europe, can also boast of antiquity: 2000 years of history contemplate a city that has been home to Romans, Visigoths and Muslims since it was founded in the year 138 before Christ.
The footprint of this history invariably appears when an excavation is undertaken. The urban subsoil of Valencia is a paradisiacal quarry for architects, not so much for builders.
Those centuries of history are present in the Palacio Vallier building, built in the very centre of the city in 1890 by Salvador Monmeneu, who was commissioned by a wealthy landowner named Francisco Royo.
The palace, located in the Plaza de Manises in the old town, has as its neighbours the government buildings that house the Valencian Government and the Provincial Council. After being built as a private home, it has been used for such varied purposes as the headquarters of the Supreme Court in the times of the Second Republic, as premises of the Casa Americana, and as a complementary building of the Provincial Council of Valencia.
Janfri & Ranchal Studio completed all the interior design of the five-star hotel, during which they carried out restoration work on the decorated plaster ceilings and created new pieces such as cornices, decorative ceiling roses and geometric reliefs with mouldings.
Since the end of 2019 it has been a luxury hotel and it was precisely during this latest refurbishment to convert it into the place it is today, that the building work uncovered the existence of archaeological remains of a Roman perfumery dating from the third century. The treasures include paving, remains of wall paintings and fragments of the glass bottles used for the perfumes. As a tribute, the hotel restaurant is named “La perfumería” and its decoration incorporates some of those original elements.
The firm Luengo Arquitectos undertook the renovation and refurbishment of the building to adapt it to its new use and to the specific needs of a place of this nature, whilst the interior design was initially subject to the design of a pilot room by HUP Interiorismo y Diseño, during which the utmost respect was given to the original elements of the building (such as the original hydraulic floors and the carvings), combining them with Carrara marbles and contemporary pieces.
Janfri & Ranchal Studio completed all the interior design of the five-star hotel, during which they carried out restoration work on the decorated plaster ceilings and created new pieces such as cornices, decorative ceiling roses and geometric reliefs with mouldings.
The presence of the firm Lladró is apparent in every corner of the palace, but especially impressive is an imposing 18-metre chandelier designed by the German creator Bodo Sperlein, which is suspended in the stairwell like a fairy waterfall.
Along the walls of the stairs, the lighting is completed by lamps from the Nightbloom collection, work of Marcel Wanders in collaboration with Lladró, producing a peculiar light thanks to their organic forms.
La presencia de la firma Lladró en cada rincón del palacio es notable pero sobre todo impresiona un imponente chandelier de 18 metros diseñado por el creativo alemán Bodo Sperlein, que queda suspendido en el hueco de la escalera como si fuera una cascada de hadas.
Lladró also lends its name to the suite located in the former ballroom of the palace, which has fabric-lined walls, original baroque artesonado ceilings and an antique dark wood fireplace, also original.
The Lladró Lounge Bar, for its part, emulates American bars from the thirties and features the most avant-garde sculptural figures of the Valencian firm, such as The Guest (designer Jaime Hayon created this figure for the Valencian firm in 2012), Dome table lamps and Origami panthers.
The building, which has been respected absolutely to the extent possible, bearing in mind its state of conservation, is crowned by a terrace with magnificent views of the rooftops, domes and belltowers of the historic centre of Valencia. Views that remind us that we are contemplated by two thousand years, no less.