Edificio el Planeta, Art Deco building in Atlántida, Uruguay

Edificio el Planeta is a ship-shaped Art Deco building on the Rambla at Calle 22, designed by the Italian Natalio Michelizzi and built in 1937. A ground floor forms the hull, with the terrace above as the main deck; three further levels with balcony-terraces serve as decks, topped by a semicircular command bridge with a lookout. The hall resembles a transatlantic liner's, corridors run like ship passages and rooms imitate cabins.

Italian entrepreneur Natalio Michelizzi commissioned the building as a hotel that opened in 1937 and operated until 1958. This period marks the development of Atlántida as a beach resort with European influences shaping its urban design.

The name comes from the Planeta printing presses owned by Natalio Michelizzi, the Italian who conceived the building. Inside, the hall is modelled on that of a large ocean liner, the corridors follow a ship's layout and the rooms are shaped as cabins.

The building sits at the intersection of Rambla and Calle 22 with direct beach access and serves as an easy landmark for navigation. You can reach it on foot from most locations in town.

Michelizzi's first proposal was rejected by the authorities: he wanted the walls of the ship's bow built leaning outward like a real hull, and a pit dug around the building and filled with water so guests would cross footbridges-stairways as if boarding a vessel. The hotel was nonetheless erected in a record time of one year.