Once in a while, a hotel comes along that is breath- takingly original and truly one-of-a-kind. The Silo Hotel is a game-changer. The Silo is a brilliantly imaginative mixture of the traditional and the contemporary, a place where modern African art feels improbably at home with the industrial past of colonial Cape Town. I can’t recall the last time I visited a new hotel that I found so exhilarating and that seemed such an instantaneous addition to the life and character of a city.