In the coming months, the building that once housed Macau’s famous Hotel Estoril will no longer exist as authorities demolish the structure to make way for a new four-storey, 15,000 square metre central library.
Although the building’s life is numbered, the Hotel Estoril will live on through the design of the Central Library. statement in a Macao The magazine reports that it plans to keep the same exterior color scheme as the Estoril Hotel.
[See more: The first phase of Macao’s new Central Library will be finished next December]
“If we had used other colors, like red and yellow, the library would have taken on a different presence and a different color,” said Nuno Fontarra, an architect at the firm. [hotel] The architecture gives it continuity. You still remember what it was like there before.” In addition, the hotel’s iconic mosaic of the Roman goddess Fortuna will remain in the lobby of the new library.
As the final chapter of Hotel Estoril’s history draws to a close, now is the perfect opportunity to look back at the hotel’s once-great past. Here are five things you might not have known about Hotel Estoril.
1. This was Stanley Ho’s first casino
Although the late casino tycoon Stanley Ho rose to fame with the Lisboa Casino, Hotel Estoril was actually his first step into Macau’s gaming industry. In 1961, Ho’s company, Sociedade de Turismo de Sociedad (STDM), won Macau’s sole gaming concession and built the Casino Nova de Macau (literally, New Garden Casino) on the site of Hotel Estoril.
The New Garden Casino opened on January 1, 1962 and is known as Macau’s first casino with international standard gaming facilities, said Melody Lu, a professor of sociology at the University of Macau. Tell this New York Times Its establishment marked that China would break free from the shackles of its past “opium casino”.
In addition to the casino offering Western games such as roulette and poker, the venue also features a range of Non-Gaming Facilitiesincluding a luxurious restaurant that doubles as a ballroom, and the Estoril Swimming Pool, which dates back to 1952. The Estoril Hotel opened on November 15, 1963 as part of the complex.
[See more: A protection plan for Macao’s heritage sites takes effect tomorrow]
This hotel Never intended As STDM’s permanent base of operations. The government temporarily leased the land on which the hotel stood to Ho’s company to help the fledgling casino operator get off the ground. By the 1970s, STDM had built its flagship properties, Casino Lisboa and Casino Jai Alai. As a result, the government reached an agreement with STDM to close the New Garden Casino, while the other venues would remain and be managed by another company.
The hotel and its various facilities remained in operation until the 1980s, when the number of guests began to decline due to its distance from Macau’s commercial and tourist areas. In the 1990s, the Hotel Estoril ceased operations permanently and ownership was transferred to the Financial Services Bureau. Meanwhile, the Estoril Swimming Pool was returned to the government in 1989 and has been in operation ever since. Operated as a public swimming pool since.
2. The hotel’s name reflects Mr Ho’s close connection to the Portuguese town
Mr Ho’s decision to name the hotel after the tourist hotspot, located about 25km west of Lisbon, was inspired by his love for Portuguese culture. “My friendship with Portugal started in Macau, and my love for Portugal came from Cascais and Estoril,” said the gaming magnate. lead As stated in the 2008 Portuguese Residents Report.
In fact, the late tycoon’s company, STDM, has owned the operating rights for decades to the coastal town of Estoril Casino, one of the largest and oldest in Europe. In 2008, the gaming magnate was recognized for his contributions to the Cascais municipality, where the Estoril Casino is located, by naming a boulevard after him, making him the first living Chinese to receive this honor in Portugal.
[See more: Hotel Estoril revamp project restructured]
Three years after Stanley Ho died in 2020, there were fears that his family would lose control of the Estoril casino after a Spanish rival submitted a higher bid. However, the government ultimately renew STDM’s contract runs until 2037.
3. The hotel’s iconic mural was created by the father of Macau pop duo Soler
The Hotel Estoril’s iconic mosaic of Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck, was created by Macau-based Italian architect and sculptor Osio Acconci, the twins’ father. Giulio and Dino Acconci, they formed the group known as Solerone of the most famous music groups in Macau.
Osio Acconci was born in 1905 into an Italian sculptor family. He moved to Hong Kong in 1936 and was hired by a British company to go to Shanghai at the end of the same year. After working in Shanghai for about two years, he was transferred to the company’s Hong Kong branch.
[See more: Macao has listed six new cultural heritage sites]
After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Akonti struck out again, moving to Macau, where he continued to create prolifically, participating in the design of the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Mong Ha (1951), the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Jiu Ao (1967), and the Church of Our Lady of Fatima (1968). In addition to his architectural work, he continued to create sculptures, some of which are placed in On display At the Macau Museum of Art.
Arnaldo, one of Akonsi’s sons describe He was “a Renaissance man, well versed in the arts of painting and sculpture.”
Acconci died in 1988, but his son Giulio clearly inherited his father’s talent for the visual arts. The musician is himself an accomplished artist, sculptor and graphic designer. Some exhibition these years.
4. This hotel once had a children’s playground
Like today’s integrated resorts, the Estoril Hotel was not just a casino hotel, but a full-scale entertainment venue that, in addition to the swimming pool, also featured a nightclub, a karaoke bar and the Sio Sio Amusement Park (Little Park). It officially opened on October 10, 1962.
Located next to the hotel, the amusement park has been a hit with families since its launch. Dickson’s Law In the book Macau Storyboards: Nostalgic Selectionsthe attraction features a variety of rides themed around animals, trains, mermaids and Superman.
[See more: Macau urban planners mull alternatives for Hotel Estoril]
Mr Lei also mentioned that there were shooting games and pinball machines. “At that time, you could exchange one Macau pataca for two tokens, which allowed you to stay in the amusement park for a few hours, playing the machines, learning the secrets of the games and having fun.”
However, after the Hotel Estoril closed in the late 1990s, the pinball machines and the rest of Sio Sio Park were eventually consigned to the history books.
5. The hotel was embroiled in controversy after closing
For years, the fate of the Hotel Estoril has been up in the air, with no consensus on whether the building should be demolished or repurposed. In 2015, then-Secretary for Culture and Social Affairs Alexis Tam announced that the government was planning to convert the abandoned building into a youth recreation and sports venue. However, the plan proved extremely polarizing, especially after Tam said that retaining the Fortuna mosaics, which were left exposed, would “improper“Because young people will use the facility.
The controversy surrounding the murals is nothing new. [Fortuna] “She was completely naked,” Arnaldo Acconci, the son of the mural’s creator, told Macau Close. “But people complained,” he recalled, “and our father had to cover her with veils and olive leaves and stuff like that.”
In 2016, the government announced A survey Of those, more than 80 percent of 2,003 local respondents said they supported redevelopment of the hotel site, though an equal number did not know whether the actual building should be demolished or preserved.
[See more: 82.7 percent support Macau government plan for Hotel Estoril]
That year, the future of the Hotel Estoril became so tense that the leader of the New Macau Association, Chiang Chi Keong, hung a banner on the hotel’s roof calling Tam Chon Weng a “cultural killer.” live Minutes later, he and his accomplices were unceremoniously arrested by law enforcement.
Ultimately, the government abandoned the youth center plan in favor of a new plan: demolish the hotel and build a new central library in its place. according to The then director of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, Mo Xinxin, believed that the hotel was more suitable than the original choice. Old Court Located in Nam Van, it is adjacent to other supporting facilities in the Tap Seac Square area, including the Youth Experimental Center, the Macau Archives and several schools.
The government recently announced that the first phase of construction, which includes the demolition of the hotel structure, will be completed by December 2025, and the end of Hotel Estoril is imminent.
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