Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley

by Eric Rumble
August 14th, 2009

Lobby (Photo: Peter Vitale, Courtesy of the Four Seasons)

Explore the swanky hotel’s staggering art collection via podcast

Whether or not your tax bracket allows you to consider staying at the Four Seasons, a pilgrimage to this particular one (about ten minutes from Stanford University campus) is essential for any modern art lover.

Peppered through the swanky lobby, ground-level hallways and a bright, minimalist Quatro Restaurant are a collection of paintings, sculptures, etchings, lithographs and mixed media pieces that will make your jaw drop and your mind reel. There’s an eight-piece riff on Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Salvador Dali, a series of haunting human figures by Korean artist Yong Deok Lee, and some wonderful coin masks behind the concierge desks by Wu Shaoxiang. All told, the variety and quality of works is staggering, from outsider artists’ pieces to works by luminaries such as Max Ernst and Joan Miro.

Better still, you can learn something by dawdling here if you come prepared: the hotel has created a podcast tour of their collection, complete with artist interviews and commentary from experts, that can be downloaded in advance to help guide you around. For hotel guests that aren’t digitally equipped, the front desk has a few lender iPods.