Dore Hotel — The New Building

Built for the best hour of the day

A resort building is judged at golden hour — when the light turns, the pool stills, and every arch has to throw exactly the shadow the architect drew. The Dore's new wing is a row of arched, swim-up suites facing each other across one long pool, with perforated concrete screens that filter the Cretan sun into patterns on the terraces.

Lydakis took the hotel from fifty rooms to a complete hospitality operation: twenty-one new rooms, thirteen maisonettes, and twelve hundred square metres of basement holding a gym, a spa, a playroom and the service spaces that keep all of it running — structure, arches and perforated screens, pools and waterproofing, and the fit-out, in seven months.

The result is the building in the photographs above — the same frame at midday and at dusk, the way the photographer shot it and the way guests live it.