Zaha Hadid Architects’ first hotel in Rome is set in a 16th-century palazzo

ZHA transforms an “untouchable” Roman palace into a vibrant scenic space, blending geometric manipulations and material experimentation, all in the spirit of functional theatricality.

If historical heritage often requires designers to be immobilised by regulatory constraints and bureaucratic jams, the circumstance that one of the firms most intolerant of limits (starting from those of Euclidean geometry) is instilling new life into a 16th-century building in the heart of Rome suggests a paradox. This is the case of the recently completed restoration of Palazzo Capponi by Zaha Hadid Architects.

Zaha Hadid Architects, Romeo Roma Hotel, Rome, Italy 2025. Photo Courtesy of Romeo Roma Hotel

And it is precisely a “functional theatricality” that inspires the design of the Romeo Roma Hotel, ZHA's first adaptive reuse project featuring a hospitality programme. Dating back to the 16th century, the aristocratic palace located in Via di Ripetta after several 18th-century renovations was profoundly altered in the 1960s to house public offices.

In 2013, a Maecenas entrepreneurship, active in the luxury hotel sector, acquired the property and commissioned ZHA to turn it into an “urban resort” where wellness, art, architecture and haute cuisine could be intertwined. “Our mission is to give value to properties through a deep integration of design, art and management know-how capable of responding to the needs of an increasingly aware and demanding guest base”, comments hotel owner Alfredo Romeo.

As the building could not be altered, the studio chose to overlay the historic shell with a contemporary scenography that wraps and hides it, with a dual function: the “dramaturgical” function of providing a scenic space of different rooms (due to the rigid layout) but recognisable in a unified identity; the “practical” function of forming a cavity with the existing building to house all the plants and innovative technological and domotic systems, conceived to guarantee comfort while minimising environmental impact.

The result is a combination of fluid forms, geometric and materic interweaving where the leitmotif is the vaulting element that ZHA manipulates, deconstructs and recomposes differently in every room. A work that, as Paola Cattarin (Zaha Hadid Architects) states, is the result of an ‘’ideative, technological and constructive intelligence that creates spaces “effortlessly”, hiding their complexities‘’.

Zaha Hadid Architects, Romeo Roma Hotel, Rome, Italy 2025. Photo Chris Dalton

From the Via di Ripetta entrance, the reception desk welcomes visitors and introduces them into the lobby, where the white marble head of Livia Drusilla (wife of the Emperor Augustus, found in the archaeological excavations in the building site) welcomes into a radiant full-height space punctuated by designer furnishings and artistic installations, and surmounted by a retractable translucent roof and a vaulted structure of satin-finished stainless steel profiles.

From here, pathways lead to the common facilities on the ground floor: the bar, the fumoir, two restaurants (one of which is run by a multi-star chef); on the upper floors, there are the 74 rooms and suites, some with private terraces and frescoes.

An unconventional combination of environmentally friendly artificial and natural materials, pushed to their full potential through skilled craftsmanship and an “obsessive” attention to detail, characterises the work. The common spaces are moulded by the interweaving of makassar ebony surfaces covered in nautical two-component polyester, Carrara Statuarietto marble, black Marquina marble and crion, marking out flows of pathways and rest areas. 

Zaha Hadid Architects, Romeo Roma Hotel, Rome, Italy 2025. Photo Chris Dalton

The lobby is an immersive environment clad in brass sheets contrasting with lava stone and ebony floors and marble walls. In the spa, Sicilian rock salt walls contrast with fibreglass shells, while heated lava stone floors dialogue with heat-treated cedar and ash wood cladding and tadelakt (a waterproof lime-based wall covering of ancient Moroccan origin, Ed.); in the swimming pool that expands towards the outdoor courtyard, it is possible to swim and glimpse, through the glazed backdrop, the remains of the fish ponds of the ancient port of Ripetta.

Zaha Hadid Architects, Romeo Roma Hotel, Rome, Italy 2025. Photo Courtesy of Romeo Roma Hotel

The irresistible urge to dynamism, a typical feature of the studio, is translated into “endogenous motions” that animate the spaces: from the ebony wall and ceiling coverings that stretch as if subjected to traction, generating irregular voids to accommodate mirrors, shelves and frames of the numerous works of art on display; to the Carrara marble slabs of the steam fireplaces that, like “Bernini-like” marble veils, swell and split as if under the impulse of a heat explosion; to the ceilings that flake out into roto-translated slats similar to a fish gill, forming openings for ventilation and lighting.

A “Caravaggesque” use of light, hidden and purposely directed, accentuates the theatricality of the crepuscular rooms, piercing the darkness and dramatically sculpting the contours of furnishings and finishes.

Zaha Hadid Architects, Romeo Roma Hotel, Rome, Italy 2025. Photo Chris Dalton

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