John Portman sparked an atrium hotel craze in the latter half of the 20th century—look no further than his dazzling neofuturistic Hyatt Regency properties in Atlanta and San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center. Around the corner from the latter, in the heart of the city’s Financial District, a lesser-known Portman building marked by a jagged concrete facade was recently revamped into The Jay, an Autograph Collection hotel where AvroKO’s moody yet restrained interiors subtly reference the architect and San Francisco lore.
The homage begins in the lobby, where abstract relief-panel screens evoke Portman’s signature brutalism; a grand spiral staircase snaking around a golden pole takes cues from his former Atlanta home. The hotel’s 360 suites skew lighter, thanks in part to sinuous furniture informed by the sculptures of local legend Ruth Asawa and angled floor-to-ceiling windows that wrap the bedrooms. The Omakase Group’s executive chef Michael Magallanes masterminded The Third Floor Terrace, where lushly landscaped seating nooks and a seasonal menu featuring premier Northern California produce offer a breath of fresh air in the frenetic Bay Area.
