Arrival

You notice the holes first. Morpheus is two towers joined at the top and bottom, with three voids punched clean through the middle, and from the ground you can see sky and the far side of Cotai straight through a building that is nothing but hotel. Nothing about it looks structurally possible, which is the point, and which is why people with no interest in Macau come to Cotai to stand underneath it.

The frame that holds it up is on the outside, wrapped around the glass in a lattice that thickens where the loads are and thins where they are not, so the shape of the structure is a diagram of what it is doing. Inside, that means no columns: an atrium the full height of the building with glass lifts crossing it diagonally, corridors without interruptions, and rooms with an unbroken wall of glass because nothing needs to stand in it.

The exterior is a more interesting object than the interior is a place. The lobby is dramatic and slightly cold, and the corridors, column-free and curved and uniformly lit, are the least legible I have walked in any large hotel. For the first day I found my room by reading the numbers, like a person. By the second I had learned the carpet.

The room

I had a Deluxe King on a high floor facing Cotai. It is a big, calm, pale room organised around the glass: bed placed to face out, a low timber headboard, one red sculptural piece on the wall doing the work a picture would normally do, and a carpet with a pattern that reads as the exoskeleton if you look for it and as nothing much if you do not.

The hotel had set the table before I arrived, with balloons, flowers and a board of fruit, which is either charming or slightly much depending on the day you have had. On this occasion it was charming. The view on a clear afternoon runs across the whole strip to the lakes and then to the mountains on the mainland, and it is the best thing in the room by a distance.

The bathroom is where the building shows off: twin basins, a deep tub placed to see the window, a shower with pressure that arrives immediately, and enough marble to make the room feel colder than it is. Storage is generous and thoughtfully placed, which sounds like faint praise and is not; this is a hotel where people arrive for four nights with luggage for ten.

Noted

Observed on the stay, not measured.

What	Checked on the stay
Pool	Runs from indoors out through the exoskeleton void
Noise	Silent on a high floor; the podium is not
Bed	Very comfortable, and the air conditioning is noiseless
Blackout	Perfect — automated curtains
Water pressure	High, and a beautiful shower
Wi-Fi	Fast, no drop-outs
Walk to the theatre	Under ten minutes, all of it indoors

Eating

Alain Ducasse at Morpheus is upstairs and is the formal room; Voyages is the all-day one; Yí is the small, high, glassy one; and Pierre Hermé does the pastry in the atrium. The best meal on the estate, though, is not in Morpheus at all. Jade Dragon is downstairs, three stars on the door, and it is the reason to plan a night here properly rather than eating whatever is closest to the lift. There is a separate piece on it.

The pool goes through the building

The pool is on the deck above the podium and it does the single cleverest thing on the property: it starts indoors under a low ceiling, then runs out through the gap in the exoskeleton, so you swim from shade into daylight between two structural members the size of tree trunks. Two versions of the same pool, and a doorway made of the thing holding the hotel up. Quiet in the morning, busy from noon, and a good deal of shade on the indoor half, which in a Macau June is not a luxury.

The spa and the gym are on the podium levels, large, well equipped and essentially anonymous. Neither is a reason to book. The pool is.

The show is at City of Dreams a separate space connected through the lobby with a stage that floods and drains inside a scene change. It is very loud, very wet and completely unembarrassed, and it is the best ninety minutes of entertainment in Macau. I have seen Cirque du Soleil and the like across the globe — this was my favorite to date. If you like circus — this is a MUST DO before you die. Book a middle VIP seat rather than the front, which is a splash zone that trades a soaking for a worse view of a stage designed to be read from a distance. Go on the first night rather than the last, because you will want to talk about it for the rest of the trip and nobody at home is going to believe you.

Service moments

Efficient and a little impersonal, which is the house style across Cotai rather than a fault of this hotel in particular. Requests are actioned quickly and correctly. Nobody learns your name. In a property this size attached to a casino floor, that is the honest trade, and it is worth knowing rather than being disappointed by. We needed no assistance and received none.

The lifts are part of the architecture and part of the problem. The glass cabins running diagonally across the atrium are thrilling the first three times. They are also slower than a conventional bank and there are fewer of them than a hotel this size would normally have, so at the two peaks of the day, checkout and pre-show, you wait. They fly up though when it is only you.

A building that is a better argument than a bedroom, and worth the trip anyway.

Who it is for, and who it is not

Come if you are the kind of person who travels to stand under a building, and use Cotai as a base camp: two nights, one afternoon in the old peninsula, one evening at the show, one dinner at Jade Dragon. Ask for a high floor facing Cotai and the lakes. Swim before ten. Book the show and Jade Dragon before you fly. And walk out to the base of the building at night to look up through the voids, which asks nothing of you and is the best thing here.

Look elsewhere if you mind that the casino is effectively the lobby: almost every route to almost anything crosses a gaming floor, and its noise and lighting are designed by people whose interests are not yours. Look elsewhere for anything more than two nights. Cotai is reclaimed land laid out for coaches, there is nothing to walk to, and old Macau, which is an extraordinary city, is a taxi away every time.

See the full set: Morpheus, Macau — in frames. More Macau: Jade Dragon.