THE BUILDER OF DREAMS: ALAN FAENATEN YEARS AGO, HE CHANGED PUERTO MADERO.

NOW HE IS TRANSFORMING MIAMI.

La Nacion Magazine. October 6th

It’s pouring with a tropical fury on Collins Avenue, between 32nd and 35th streets. Smack in the busy red-walled epicenter where hundreds of workers and enormous cranes are constructing the most ambitious cultural milestone in the history of south Florida. Seem-ingly unaware of the weather, Alan Faena (50), whose has been living on these beaches since February, takes two umbrellas from the charming Claridge Hotel, on the corner of Collins and 32nd St., which he purchased a few months ago. He then heads towards his pharaonic project: a neighborhood six blocks long, with the clear blue ocean on one side and Indian Creek on the other, a project involving a dream team of architects and cutting-edge designers. To put things in perspective, the talents associated to the six buildings that will be inaugurated next year before Art Basel would be like having Messi, Maradona, Pele and Ronaldo playing on the same team. The aesthetes include Brandon Haw, from the architectural studio Foster & Partners, who designed the residential building Faena House, with apartments selling to the New York elite. The penthouse inside the building has broken a record as the most expensive home ever sold in Florida. Rumor has it that it was sold to the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, who paid $50 million for the glass-en-cased residence measuring 4300 square feet that simulates a ship’s prow. Rem Koolhaas, the Dutchman who received the equivalent of a Nobel in architecture, the Pritzker prize, was entrusted with designing the most dynamic and distinctive building in Faena District Miami Beach: the cylindrical Arts Center, with its residences for artists connected like a white cube, along with a bazar with underground parking and the chic marina on Indian Creek. But as if this weren’t enough to get headlines in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times—an initial investment of $550 million, contributed by banks and by Faena’s partner, the Ukrainian-born U.S. citizen Len Blavatnik—what really grabbed the attention of the American public was another influence altogether: that of film director Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge, The Great Gatsby) and his wife Catherine Martin, who has won two Oscars for the costumes and set decoration she’s done for her husband’s films. Faena convinced the couple to redesign a historic Miami hotel, the Saxony, with Latin glamour from the 1920s. With its art deco façade and 170 rooms, the Saxony was the epitome of opulence in the 1950s. A theater next door to the hotel palace promises a new chapter for creative leisure on Miami Beach, a magnet for tycoons from across the world. Immune to the fanfare that has surrounded his project, Faena is like a director from the South focused on his most ambitious film ever in the North: donned in an immaculate white outfit (never a stain!), with his feather hat (an epic symbol of his battle to make his

MIAMI

dreams come true), he settles into his trailer and goes over every single detail with a Zen-like calm. Nothing gets past him. He goes from trailer to trailer, checking everything from the type of marble to be used in one suite to the plans for the shows that will premier in his theater. He is not alone: his creative partner, Ximena Camin-os (45), the mother of his son Noah (5) shadows him. The two are inseparable and together they will be celebrating the upcoming ten year-anniversary of what has become an icon of Puerto Madero: the Hotel Faena + Universe, a former building of Molinos Río de la Plata that Faena recovered with Philippe Starck that marked a whole new beginning for the Buenos Aires neigh-borhood. Part happening and part installation, the art collective Assume vivid astro focus will set up a disco-themed roller rink in the Arts Center for a four-day celebration.

In the meantime, lightning continues to spark over the Miami Beach sky. Faena breathes deeply, looks out at the sea, walking beneath his umbrella as if he didn’t have a care in the world, checking up on his neighborhood’s progress. He doesn’t even get muddy. After he’s checked up on everything, he settles in for a long talk with LA NACION Magazine.

I’m surprised by how calmly you handle yourself in such a monu-mental project.You need to be balanced and have a very particular nature to handle a project of this scale, with so many people, emotions, money and energies: the buildings, the theater, the show, the Arts Center. There aren’t many people in the world who could do it. But I have that nature; I trained myself to have it. I am the warrior of my dreams. And for me, as a man from the South, it’s very important to be able to come fly our flag in the North, which generally looks only eastward. We are the first voice from the South to really make itself heard in the North. That’s why we’ve received so much attention in the press here. It’s the first time that a voice from the South is heard so clearly in the North, with this level of investment and vision. So bringing our flag here and making our voice be heard is truly a pleasure for me but it is also a big responsibility. Because I come from a part of the world that usually encounters a brick wall when it comes to something this big.

How do you feel when you walk through Puerto Madero, in the neighborhood you named after yourself?I feel the satisfaction of having allowed myself to dream up some-thing in the city I love, of having created a sort of urban alchemy by transforming that factory, a symbol of Argentina as a world power that was later abandoned, into a hotel. Those buildings are going to be there forever, with architecture, design, art incorpo-rated to different spaces. People now think it was always there. At the personal level, it seems as though you shape what you build, but what you build also shapes you. I grew with my work. And I never focused on the business side of things—the money came later.

Where did you develop your own personal aesthetic?Even in high school, I needed to create my own worlds. I was a little shy and I would hide inside my fantasy world, in the summer home inside my head. In a little corner, I would put up my pictures, set up my things, create my own space. Later, I began

inviting my friends into those worlds. My house in José Ignacio, Tierra Santa, was like an embassy, with people from all over the world. I had sold Via Vai, I had spent five years cultivating a rose garden on the beach, and I spent time thinking about how to return to the world. I was far from everything, no telephone, no Internet. I didn’t know how to get back in. I didn’t want to return to the fashion world. Until one day, it hit me. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a building and bring in all these people to interact with my city? A hotel with a theater where my artistic friends can perform and Natalia (Lobo, Faena’s former girlfriend) can sing.” And I started taking trips to Buenos Aires to find a building that would allow me to set up that human alchemy, until at last I found it: a majestic building in shambles, overrun by the countryside, without any streets. And it cost eleven million dollars.

Did you have the money?Not even close. But I stood outside the building and I said, “Wow!” And I imagined it coming alive. I went to see the owner, Julián Ganzábal, and I said, “Look Mr. Ganzábal, I want to buy that building.” He said, “No, Faena, we don’t sell things: we build them!” But after saying no so many times, he finally accepted. And I said, “Now you’ll see how that land goes up in value.”

I shook his hand and was so happy. But I didn’t have the money.A dreamer?Yes. In the meantime, I was sending postcards to Philippe Starck from Uruguay, sending pictures of the building, pictures of my life, my house, my dogs, the ocean, Natalia, and I would write, “Dear Philippe, Argentina needs you”. When I finally met him six months later, he already knew all about me. It was Chris Burch (investor and developer of New York brands) who introduced me to friends of his and later joined the project. I didn’t make any pact with the devil. Six months later, I paid Ganzábal and started working with Starck. I made it happen because I’m very method-ical and very patient.

And you reinvented yourself.Yes, and that was the hardest part, because it’s always hard to stop being what you were: three somersaults and you’re some-place new. It requires a lot of evolving, getting over your frustra-tions, your dark side. First you have to stand above the abyss, an abyss that appears when you feel as though you need to do things that are no longer there, and then you have to change.Did you every have conflicts with your business partners?No, never. The secret is doing things right, always working to ensure that everyone benefits and having a long-term vision. From the point of view of creation, it’s important to bear in mind that life is long.

How would you define the Faena aesthetic today?Intense and changing, though always with the same heart. It’s eclectic; I don’t have styles, because soul is all about freedom. Nothing is right or wrong. And that freedom allows me to create unique places, from a ranch to a palace. For example, the residences Foster is building here are inspired in the way I live when I’m in José Ignacio, with my hammock, on my porch, but on another level.

Is your wife your creative partner?More than a partner, Ximena is my soul mate, a treasure that life has given to me. She’s my dream of what love should be, my friend, my teammate and intellectual partner, my smile, pure love, the mother of Noah (Faena’s five-year-old son), my joie de vivre. I have simple tastes: I am a family man and I thrive on family love, which is what I give my son and my wife. And she is key to balancing my life.

Moving to Miami must have been a big change. What is your life like here?I go wherever the film takes me. But I travel frequently to Buenos Aires. Noah just started school. Here everything starts very early. I used to laugh at Americans who would come to the hotel to eat at seven-thirty and now I eat just an hour later. I get up at six-thir-ty and have some mate near the water (Faena is living on the Venetien Isles), I read the Argentine papers on my i-Pad, I take Noah to school and my meetings start at nine. We all work in trailers, just like in the movies! I have lunch with Ximena. I work out and do yoga every day to make sure my body keeps up with my mind. I work until seven and don’t really have much of a social life—I only go out to eat once in a while. What I like about Miami is the nature, the contact with water, the light, the palm trees, the birds. I am very happy here.

Would you invest in Argentina again?Yes. I have some spectacular land in Puerto Madero and I am going to continue developing and going to continue to enjoy myself, which is what’s most important. But right now, the condi-tions aren’t in place for constructing. From the day I started Via Vai, I experienced all the ups and downs of Argentina. But you always have to consider the long term in Argentina. It’s a rich, incredible country and it’s always going to recover from its temporary setbacks.

Why do people find you so eccentric?Because I live without limits. Everything I do starts from my freedom, which is the best thing anyone can have. I was always

true to myself; I never pretended to be someone I wasn’t. Maybe that freedom seems eccentric. If you focus only on my hat, you never know what the mind is thinking, which is what’s truly interesting. But it’s other people’s bias, not mine.

Were you always so sure of yourself?I grew up with the unconditional love and trust of my parents. That love made me who I am, made me believe I could conquer the world. I am the evolution and the result of all that.

Since you reinvented yourself once, do you think that ten years from now you could be doing something else?Yes. I could leave it all behind and be a gardener. And I would be happy, because I’m not attached to anything.

How did you manage to convince this dream team of designers and architects to join you?If you approach sensitive and creative people with your truth, if you approach them from the heart, they feel connected. And my relations have been a big part of that construction, which later become relationship for life. What’s the secret? Being able to honestly offer yourself to someone else. Because my creative process starts with a sound deep inside me, and then other instruments join in until a symphony is formed. And as more instruments join in, it sounds better and better. I love bringing in other talents, working with them and learning from their genius.

Aren’t these relationships asymmetrical?All of those who are with me today are much more brilliant than I am. That lifts me up and helps me improve. Accepting ideas from the inexperienced is also useful: knowledge has limits, but inexperience does not. And that was a big help for me.

Now, creating utopias, as you call it, evokes a perfect world, which sounds artificial. How do you deal with ugliness?I need ugliness to make it beautiful. And there’s nothing artificial about it: I don’t know anyone dedicated to creating something that’s not beauty and betterment. That’s human evolution: make something better, be better than our parents and make our children better than us. But I don’t think I live in a perfect world.

But in your day to day life, can you deal with something that isn’t aesthetically pleasing?Of course. You only see the beautiful part because you aren’t seeing the process. It’s the same with the stereotypical image some have of me, what I said about seeing only the hat and overlooking what is happening beneath it, all situations that I take advantage of.

How?By sheltering myself beneath the hat.So you live in a neighborhood that’s named after you, but you protect your privacy to the maximum.That is how I am: sheltered. I don’t need to show off. My work speaks for me. Being a celebrity, getting your picture taken—I did that when I was young and now I’m past it. Now luxury is about not showing off. Being true to the things I do and not living for what people think of you.

But people buy your “Faena Universe.”As they should. I would do the same.

Do you have a dark side?It has to do with daily work to transform darkness into something better.

Anything specific?I can’t think of any. Maybe one of the times when I experienced great frustration had to do with the process of being a gardener. It’s truly a challenge to be alone with yourself, with no distrac-tions, and to heal yourself. That was one of the times when I learned the most in my life.

Heal yourself of what?I had become very busy at a very young age. I was thirty-two. I went from having twenty stores, four hundred people, being in fashion, a mad rush, and suddenly I was alone with the universe—which was exactly where I wanted to be. Every night I would sit down and feel the wind caress my forehead and experi-ence the earth spinning. I needed time to heal and I took that time. That’s when I was living with Natalia (Lobo). Luckily, I always had great women who loved me and were loved in return. For me, life should be shared with someone.

Have you had any failures?I would talk about frustrations as opposed to failures. I learned that you have to see things in perspective. Suddenly today you see something as frustrating because it was painful, but later that pain can lead you to a better path. I have a totally positive vision of life. It’s in my DNA. You cannot be a creator unless you think that you will make something better. And I believe that things happen when they are supposed to happen and in the way they’re supposed to. In general, my frustrations have taken me to a better place. It happened to me at school, for example: as a kid, things were hard for me, I didn’t fit in, I didn’t like limits. I was like a lion shut up in a cage. That was very frustrating for me. But it also allowed me to do many things.

But did things always work out right for you?It’s not about whether things go right or wrong: it’s about trying, opening yourself up and being willing to suffer in order to live. Get a little muddy to later remake yourself. What I am most interested in is reinventing myself. That is what makes me feel good. As long as you are healthy and the people you love are all right, everything else is for the better.

Where does your mystical side spring from?I think it has to do with my other lives and with my soul. And also with allowing myself to live and cultivate fantasy. As you live, you shake off the outer layers until you finally reach who you are. And yes, I do have an important spiritual connection.

Is that why you always wear white?(after a pause) I discovered that white is the perfect color for me.

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Where do you see yourself a year from now?Enjoying my “movie”: having inaugu-rated the Hotel Faena, overseeing the theater, the exhibitions at the Arts Center and being the voice of a new cultural revolution here in Miami, which will gain a new perspective on the global south. I see myself in a situation similar to today’s: working on the second phase of the project, which will be giving life to another building in the Faena District, the Versalles, constructing another tower and living and enjoying the present. Taking advantage of each and every moment of life with my wife and son.