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    Who We Are

    • Vision

      01.

      The Faena Group is about vision and passion. Dreaming up a better world is our vision. Our passion is to work every day, in everything we do, toward realizing that vision.

      02.

      We build environments where beauty and imagination come alive, from residences and hotels to art and culture spaces, in the world’s most dynamic cities.

      03.

      “One day I found myself in front of the majestic remains of this enormous brick silo complex built in 1902. Once it held the grain the fed millions around the world through the 20th Century. I realized that this was not chance but a twist of fate. I sensed that it’s destiny was not complete. This would be the Faena Hotel...”

      04.

      “...Although it lay in ruins surrounded by land that had been abandoned, it was a grand site at the core of the city. I could see nature returning around it. A vision seemed to emerge like a dream. This would be the center of a new and unique urban district, bringing new life and spirit to Buenos Aires.” Alan Faena. June 2004

      05.

      In the age of sail and steam this was once the heart of the Buenos Aires port. But that same central location and proximity to the water made it a logical center for a new community of global citizens.

      06.

      It was an enormous classical structure in the center of a great city. Yet somehow we discovered it. We discovered it value and its secrets.

      07.

      We founded the district as a place where a unique blend of architectural styles and the natural environment would emerge, a place where culture and heritage, art and technology, work and leisure could thrive together.

      08.

      We gave Buenos Aires a new enclave, a matrix where the city’s tradition of eclectic glamour and innovative culture could revive and evolve.

      09.

      As we built our vision we saw a new city coming to life and we encouraged many others to bring their visions, talents and projects to the district.

      10.

      The district became a magnet drawing an extraordinary spectrum of people together. Real estate values increased here as nowhere else in Buenos Aires.

      11.

      This was a place where art would live and occupy an important place in the lives of people. The future seemed better here. Utopia became a more contemporary idea.

      12.

      This wasn’t just a city where art would be made, exhibited and appreciated. It was the city as work of art.

      13.

      Heritage isn’t just about the past. It’s about what’s here now and will move us forward. A sense of value for culture, art, technology and architecture.

      14.

      We envisioned city life as a world of unprecedented access and opportunity, with unlimited opportunities and possibilities.

      15.

      We’ve approached the map like an art project. It’s about perspective and proportion. The right places, the right spaces. A perfect balance of public and private, culture and commerce.

    • More Videos

      01.

      Development of Faena District Buenos Aires

      02.

      Fly Trough Faena District Buenos Aires

      03.

      Recovering of Los Molinos Building

      04.

      Recovering of El Porteño Building

      05.

      Faena Hotel Live Shows

    • Dixit

       June 2006 Show Details
      PDF
      I tended the garden and went for walks along the beach. I savoured nature, constantly conscious of its immense power. I gazed at the stars. I closed my eyes and felt the sea breeze on my face. My thoughts crystallised. I can recall perfect moments. Moments of intense attention and understanding.
      That was the stage of my life before The District. It was an enormously significant part of my personal growth. In some way, in those years I imagined everything that would come later, everything that we are doing now, everything we are yet to do.
      Those years gave me a vision, and a lot of people thought I was delirious. Now I know that not only was that vision my dream, but also my destiny. Following the path that my heart told me to follow, I came up with the idea of creating a new age for Buenos Aires, recreating that fascinating Belle Époque that made my city great, and rewriting its history, re-establishing its ideals and schemes, the highest and most profound values we Argentinians once held.
      So bound up with my life was this desire that, before conceiving of transforming Buenos Aires, and focusing all my energy, imagination and creativity on attaining this, I first had to transform myself. Face up to my fears. Overcome my insecurities. Take the risk. This is why I often say I see myself as a warrior.
      When people ask me whether I think of myself as a businessman, they are always surprised when I say I think of myself as a warrior. They always ask me, and my answer is always the same. It may not be the image they really expect of me, but it’s the truth. I’m a man who fights for his dreams, who goes out in search of opportunities that will open the door that make these wishes come true. I’m a warrior in the very way that I think.
      I believe there is a transforming energy that is about perfectionism, a reflection of this great passion, having the strength to sustain this vision and following it through, right to the end. It’s something I like to call ‘impeccability’.
      Being impeccable for me is staying on that path, following your heart, carrying that torch that inspiration takes further and further on. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as it’s from the heart, having the confidence in your ideas and your strength, overcoming the things that hold you back, being the best at what you do. That, to me, is impeccability: the eternal challenge that makes me look at myself as the warrior of my own dreams.
      I also believe there is no such thing as coincidences, meaningful as they may seem. They are part of building your own dreams, the pure passion within them, so as to make them materialise in the world and transform what is real.
      Because it was not luck, but destiny, that brought me face to face with the majesty (even when it was an abandoned, derelict old shell) of the El Porteño Building, an enormous silo built in 1902 to store the grain that fed the world.
      Every time I remember that moment, I get the surreal sensation of standing in front of another Machu Picchu, but just ten minutes away from the Obelisk. It’s no exaggeration –there were trees growing out of the windows. I looked over that immense green space, those red bricks brought specially from Manchester. I thought how close it was to the river, and I told myself that this immense space, the symbol of those silos and mills of Argentina’s golden age, was this invisible island, its back turned on the bustle of the city.
      I was blown away by the chance to recreate the Belle Époque spirit, the idea of believing again in the creative force of Buenos Aires as one of the most important cities in the world. That image inspired in me the desire to restore the old splendour, to give it back to the city, and confront the challenge to create a cultural and social space capable of bring about such a transforming effect, a unique way of living in the city.
      Of course at that time, five years back, that vision was one of a glorious past, of a Buenos Aires that called itself the cosmopolis of the future and the Paris of South America, which contrasted hugely with the scenes of chaos and confusion throughout the country at that time. That Buenos Aires conscious of its youth, of the enormous possibilities in its destiny, that didn’t feel inferior to the great European capitals, that Argentina that was the ‘Breadbasket of the World’, seemed to have gone forever. A feeling of failure, the exact opposite of the vision I had for the city’s regeneration, seemed to sum it all up.
      But I personally believe that nothing is impossible. In 2001, I went out into the world to seek out investors for my project, who trusted in my need to make this dream come true, who would understand the mission that had become my battle.
      Trying times they certainly were, times when I felt my dream slipping away from me. That is why the Faena Hotel and El Porteño Residences are the cornerstone of the District, offering their intense shade of red to anyone who cares to look. The colour red represents that moment of anguish, that uncertainty that made me face up to my greatest fears and overcome them by believing in what I was doing and remembering why I was doing it. That’s why red to me is faith, the value I needed to stay on track, to clear the hurdles and carry on in this great steeplechase we call life.
      I could never have started out down that road if I hadn’t had that passion. The enormous power of passion. I really think that the last element was the money. It is my belief that wealth has nothing to do with money, that of all the systems of wealth, money is the poorest.
      I consider myself rich because I can walk my thoughts, as the Native Americans say, because I can follow no other path than that of my heart. Only the heart gives you that perspective and clarity, a strength that stays with you forever, an intuition that projects you and opens doors to experience change.
      I believe life is evolution. When a man ceases to evolve, he dies. Evolution means having passion along the same lines as your desire, never losing sight of the fact that your vision started out as a dream and stayed with you thanks to the strength of your imagination and belief.
      It was with El Porteño Building that this voyage of discovery began, the interpretation of the values and ideals of a fascinating city. Because I was successful in getting my vision across, one of the most sophisticated minds in art and contemporary design, Philippe Starck, agreed to work with us in imagining the way to breathe life into the country’s erstwhile splendour. I’ve told the story many times of how I turned down six projects: I didn’t want a Starck design, I wanted Starck thinking with me about how to realise this vision.
      At the opening of the Faena Hotel+Universe and El Porteño Residences, we went on to create Las Porteñas I and II; continuous evolution with the transformation of a magnificent early 20th century building, Los Molinos, and now attaining a new dimension today with the launch of El Aleph, designed by one of the most talented architects in the world, Sir Norman Foster.
      We started out by making a building. Now we are creating a whole district. It wasn’t money that set us on our way. It was passion, the capacity to bring about a transformation, the opportunity we have to awaken a new conscience and understanding that will allow us to reinvent ourselves and our destiny every single day. That is why my greatest motivation for doing what I do is that this urban space we’re dreaming up (and as we dream it up the more real it becomes) should be the mirror of all those who dream, all those who long for a personal path, an inspiration for all those who want to overcome their limitations and set out into the great unknown as they walk their own dreams.
      I would like to add to this brief view of some of the ideas that are fundamental in my life and my way of perceiving reality, a famous saying of Albert Einstein’s: “Imagination is more important than knowledge”.
      These words mean a lot to me. My affinity with that philosophy is absolute. I have always believed in the immense and incomparable power of the imagination to achieve dreams and goals, impossible as they may seem. Our limits are the limits of our imagination. If you can imagine, and firmly hold on to your vision, learning to see things not as they are, but how they could be, the chances of making that dream come true start looking up. It is a universal law. If you concentrate your efforts on keeping that wish to transcend yourself, step by step, putting all your heart into it, you can follow in the footsteps of your own path, affirming your own impeccability.
        The Faena District represents our homage and our vision of the future of Buenos Aires almost a hundred years on from one of the most momentous times in its history: 1910, the year the city got ready to celebrate the Centenary of the May Revolution.
        Inspired by the same outlook as our forefathers, we are creating a transforming urban space geared to awakening a new consciousness and a different way of life, by drawing on the immense power of art and the interaction between creative minds in a stimulating new social and cultural environment.
        It is our mission to pass on to future generations as much motivation and confidence in the future as our imagination and creative force can muster. We will strive to continue that splendid vision in emulation of the inhabitants of the Buenos Aires of the Centenary, because we want to transform the present, to transform our future.
        Because we believe in the transforming energy arising out of the interaction of creative minds, we called on an array of international talents and Argentinian artists. They have accepted the challenge to help us generate powerful experiences capable of revolutionizing the ways of living and dwelling in one of the world’s most fascinating cities.
        We are building the Faena District with a vision to transform an urban space into a total artwork, capable of being a new symbol of an awakening consciousness and an engine for the renaissance we have dreamed of for Buenos Aires.
          Since its early days, when the Faena Hotel opened in 2004, the District has formed a rare urban space, as part of a process of vital transformation that is making its mark on the Buenos Aires of both the present and the future. It covers an area of 220,000 m2 and is located in the east of the Puerto Madero district, a stone’s throw from the River Plate and of one of the city’s major natural landmarks, the Ecological Reserve.
          El Porteño, built in 1902, and Los Molinos, built in 1906 and characterized by technology that was cutting-edge in its day, were the first pieces that set in motion the transforming experience the Faena Group has conceived for Buenos Aires, in a bid to bring a renaissance of the city and the awakening of a new creative consciousness.
          Built with bricks brought over specially from Manchester, England, El Porteño was the first challenge faced by our vision and our dream to build a new urban space in Buenos Aires. It was definitely quite an adventure to recover and reassess the lofty ideals and profound aesthetic sensitivity of the Belle Époque so as to restore them in the present and project them into the future in a new conception of 21st century technology and lifestyle. Inspired by Alan Faena, French designer Philippe Starck has interpreted the past and given it back to the city in his very first project in Latin America.
          This was how the Faena Hotel, nominated as “Best New Hotel” in 2005 by Wallpaper, came into being. Since opening, the 105-room hotel has become an entire experience of life, art and totally innovative interaction. Its unique sense of the here and now pervades the environments of the Universe: La Catedral, El Mercado, El Bistro, El Teatro, El Cabaret, El Academy, The Library Lounge, El Poolbar and The Hammam. Here guests from all over the world rub shoulders with local visitors and residents. The hotel is completed by the El Porteño Building, containing 83 residences also designed by Phillip Starck.
          Las Porteñas I & II continued the transformation aimed at proposing to the world a new style of living through a combination of art, nature, history and new technologies. It has been Starck’s mission to rethink these past values and project them into the future –to dream up a new way of living in Buenos Aires.
          We have recently embarked on the transformation of Los Molinos, which brought prestige to early 20th century Buenos Aires and is marked out as a centre for art, life and creation. Besides housing art galleries, residences, public areas and spaces geared to a new way of experiencing art, life and new technologies, it will also be the permanent home of LEA, the Experimental Art Lab of the Faena Group, mentor of the Faena Prize for the Arts.
          In the District we have set about redrawing the face of history. We want to meet the future head on with imagination and lucidity. We want to speak to the new generations of Porteños inhabiting the city, generations who will share in the art of living with a new consciousness in which tradition and avant-garde resonate together to produce a new way of life geared to the rebirth of Buenos Aires.
          We are now launching the fourth and last piece of the District. This is an extraordinary event for us for many reasons, not simply because it will be a work of incomparable splendour, designed by one of the world’s most talented architects, Sir Norman Foster, but because it is destined to become an icon of Buenos Aires, a work to make the Buenos Aires cityscape and the city’s social and cultural life gleam and glitter with new energy.
          The El Aleph is part of the Faena Group’s legacy to future generations on the occasion of the Bicentenary of Argentina’s May Revolution in 2010.
          We are honouring, interpreting and continuing the trust of those who built the Buenos Aires of the early 20th century, because it is our wish to project ourselves into the future to become a creative power once again and put Argentina back in the world’s gaze.
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