Word: courtyard
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...grandparents who are homeless, or dead; tears of anger at the Israelis who prayed with self-righteous piety before their "holy" wall, oblivious to the suffering of the families driven out to accommodate Jewish religious fanaticism. The picturesque houses and narrow, winding streets have been replaced by a broad courtyard to accommodate 200,000 devout Jews...
...hotel's great glory used to be its opulent indoor patio, a spacious central courtyard roofed over with glass and studded with palm trees and fountains that was the very symbol of la belle epoque. In the U.S., none rivaled the "Grand Central Court" of San Francisco's Palace Hotel, tiled in marble, lit by gas and roofed with crystal. But as modern cost-efficiency techniques have moved into hotelkeeping, much of the drama and elegance has moved out. Since space is the greatest architectural luxury of all, most new hotel lobbies are mean and cramped-areas designed...
Hanging Gardens. To do it, he simply designed the hotel around a great skylit courtyard that rises through the building's full 21-story height and is big enough, according to the hotel's ads, to contain the Statue of Liberty. Wrapped around the towering shaft of air on four sides is the hotel proper, layer after layer of rooms opening onto continuous interior balconies that take the place of traditional corridors...
There is so much live greenery inside the hotel's courtyard that it looks like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon -and it takes two gardeners a full week to water it all. Five bubble-shaped, glass-enclosed elevators streak up and down a huge column at one side of the courtyard; they are programmed, says Portman, to create "kinetic architecture." Water from a 70-ft. fountain cascades down along strips of clear plastic...
Portman's bold design has already paid off. Though the hotel has been accepting guests for only a month and will not open officially for another two weeks, it already has well over $30 million in advance bookings. Visitors' reactions to the courtyard range from "a fabulosity" (an Atlanta attorney) to "the eighth wonder of the world" (a Chicago businessman). Indeed, so many bowled-over guests blurt out "Jeez!"-or stronger-when they first gaze up into 21 stories of space that hotel employees have already dubbed the spot in the lobby where the full height is first...