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He was dazed from lack of sleep' and everything had the dramatic' believably fantastic quality of a dream. Suddenly from the room above him he heard the rhythmic movements of lovemaking. He listened – at first it was as if the bed were breathing . . . and then it seemed like the panting of a thief on the run.'
The sensuous aesthetics of contemporary hotel design
Modern hotel design is responsible for more bold' colourful and imaginative creations than any other architectural genre. Never before has there been such amazing diversity' such a potpourri of styles or such extravagant playfulness. Today's hotel scene is like a box of chocolates – full of delightful confections' which present business travellers and holidaymakers alike with deliciously agonizing choices.
Taste is highly subjective' of course' and money is as instrumental as ever in defining exclusivity. Price and brand glamour still matter' but don't necessarily eclipse connoisseurship. Today's sophisticated and trend-conscious hotel guests take pleasure from savouring the very latest discoveries ahead of the crowd – in hotels just as much as in the worlds of art and fashion.
The latest developments in hotel design' as described in this book' reflect four main themes: ascetic modernism' nostalgic opulence' extravagant fantasy and exotic exclusivity. Drawing on these themes' chains and individual hotels adopt individual design strategies to enhance their brand images in an increasingly global marketplace. Three trends are predominant.
First' quality has markedly improved in the business hotel sector' where the self-referential interiors of the designer hotels have been softened and skilfully reinterpreted with an emphasis on comfort. Second' both designer hotels and business hotels are making a significant contribution to urban regeneration. In London' for example' commercial buildings in the West End have been transformed into brilliantly original hotels (including One Aldwych and Philippe Starck's first two European projects' St Martin's Lane and The Sanderson' while ailing but venerable railway hotels' such as the Great Eastern at Liverpool Street station and the Great Western at Paddington' are given modern makeovers.
Third' hotel design is embracing the opportunies offered by ethno-cultural diversity. Several years ago' the South-east Asian Amanpuri group came up with the idea of incorporating local styles and cultural traditions into luxury hideaways; now even the larger chains such as Four Seasons and Oberoi are moving confidently into this expanding upmarket sector.
The two main' contrasting forces in modern hotel design are the ‘intensive' strategy' which focuses on small' expensive hotels where guests can expect the very highest quality of facilities and services (as found in the rejuvenated' lavishly redecorated Grand Hotels)' and the ‘extensive' strategy' whereby ever larger and more lavish self-contained leisure utopias are conjured up everywhere from Las Vegas to Dubai.
Quite apart from their design attributes' today's hotels have to fulfil two key requirements as the temporary homes of business travellers: they must function effectively as fully networked workplaces and they must offer a wide range of relaxation possibilities. Rooms offering internet access and other communications facilities have become commonplace in such hotels; business centres are vital to ensure that the nomads of the information age have access to office equipment wherever and whenever they need it.
Installing digital facilities does not generally have much impact on a hotel's basic architectural structure' but the same cannot be said about the luxury facilities for sports and relaxation – often designed with a touch of exoticism – that are becoming a standard feature of many city hotels. Wherever their work may take them' today's business executives and professionals want to be pampered in every way. Health consciousness is increasing' and the modern concept of ‘wellness' has less to do with rock-hard muscles than with physical and psychological contentedness. The American term ‘spa' – supposedly derived from the Latin salus per aqua (well-being through water) – is frequently used for these oases of physical indulgence; within hotels they are often operated as spatially integrated but economically independent units open to the wider public as well as to hotel guests.
The power of images
A proper analysis of new developments in hotel design must go beyond the superficial world of stylistic vocabularies' design trends and conceptual strategies. The contemporary aesthetic can only be understood against a backdrop of the fundamental changes taking place in architecture' tourism and consumer perceptions.
An important issue here is the power of images. Our understanding of reality is increasingly conditioned by a fascination – or even a fixation – with the mythologies of the entertainment industry. These cliches define and limit our imaginative powers: we look for experiences in the real world that correspond to the illusions created by film' television and advertisements. Media manipulation of fantasy and perception is the source of an economically driven process' identified by the film director Martin Scorsese as ‘Disneyfication'. The saturation
of our senses with prefabricated images of what is desirable and pleasurable is progressing apace: leisure is becoming synonymous with entertainment' and entertainment value is the key to consumer behaviour. It is all about turning life into a theme park. It is about idealized worlds that supposedly can be made real' worlds with a high ‘recognition value'; it is also about instant gratification. The epidemic that started decades ago in amusement parks has long since taken hold in retail environments' restaurants and hotels. Today the competition to engage customers' attention and emotions means – above all – a competition for their time.
The aim is to ensnare us in a unique world that is alternately familiar and surprising.
If today's theme parks are' in the words of the Italian writer Umberto Eco' ‘allegories of consumer society'' then ‘experience' hotels embody its creative desires – the material counterparts' both subtle and striking in their effects' of changes in behaviour and expectations. A hotel stay is almost always a transitory experience – giving the sense of a life dipped into – and this fact has shaped the hotel as a genre. Where else can the philosophy expressed by the German baroque poet Andreas Gryphius – ‘we are but guests on the earth' restlessly wandering' – be experienced more elementally? Where else can personal identity be changed more freely and with less inhibition' albeit for a short time? In a hotel anyone can pretend to be different from what he or she is in ordinary life. ‘No one is concerned with others in a big hotel. Everyone is alone with themselves. Perhaps at night someone steals from their room into someone else's room – but that's all. Behind this lies a profound isolation. In their room' everyone is alone with their ego and no"you" can be reached or held.' Despite its pessimistic tone' Vicky Baum's observation in her novel Hotel Shanghai holds out the promise of a liberation from self through anonymous individuality.
‘In a hotel' guests should find what they dream of at home'' said Conrad Hilton' one of the founders of the modern hotel industry. ‘Experience' hotels aim to live up to this aspiration' whether the concept is based on a dream of Hollywood or the work of a star designer. In a highly targeted way visitors are given a surface onto which they can project their fantasies and obsessions. The hotel becomes a stage' a film set' a place where guests can enact their desires and learn more about themselves. The escapism is effective because the opportunity to change roles' to act out a usually hidden side of oneself' follows a predefined formula.
The expedition into semi-private worlds of secret desires and barely suppressed illusions begins with the choice of story and setting. The spaces and props for enacting the ritual are drawn from the stylistic repertoires of classicism' kitsch and avant-garde.
It is no coincidence that the leading representative of this transformation in hotel design is the French designer Philippe Starck. He was the first in the late 1980s to treat his interiors as stage sets' to assemble them using quotations and surprises' to arrange them as stimulating scene changes that are playfully managed and discovered by the guests; and he has done this in increasingly virtuoso fashion ever since.
In doing this he anticipated the needs and desires of the consumer elite of the information age.
The American sociologist David Brooks recently coined the term ‘bourgeois bohemians' (or ‘bobos') to describe this elite. The bobos have grown up with multimedia literacy' style-consciousness and self-awareness. For them' durability is just as important as curiosity value – their quest is for quality in all things' as they alternate between power-working and serious relaxation. The combination of efficiency and hedonism in their lives' of Protestant work ethic and Dionysian self-indulgence' gives rise to what might be called a gentle materialism – and they react to images and new experiences in a correspondingly light-hearted and self-confident manner. They behave as consumers in the same way as they surf the net' and they check into a hotel in the same way as they check into their other life situations – on a temporary basis.
Architecture as visual sensation
Emotional qualities' powerful images and unmediated expressiveness are the most prominent elements of contemporary architecture. Buildings are designed as adventures for the senses: overpowering' imperious' entertaining. ‘We are much more concerned with creating a building that arouses emotions' rather than one that represents this or that idea'' explains the Swiss architect Jacques Herzog. His Dutch colleagues Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos identify the main features of an architecture of sensation; it should be ‘anticipatory' unexpected' climactic' cinematic' time-related' non-linear' surprising' mysterious' compelling and engaging'.
Integral to the very nature of architecture and interior design is an artificial world of experience' but the creation of visual sensations and spatial illusions was for a long time subordinate to artistic' psychological and economic concerns. In 1947' in the book Vision in Motion' Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy asserted that artworks and buildings should be seen as constructed sensual experiences' and that it is the artist's task ‘to put layer upon layer' stone upon stone' in the organization of emotions; to record feeling with his particular means' to give structure and refinement as well as direction to the inner life of his contemporaries'.
Modern architecture can be read as the fulfilment of this injunction. On one hand it creates one-offs with no general relevance – buildings that' like modernist works of art' stand alone; on the other hand it creates theatrical decors made up of quotations or borrowings from popular culture. In both cases it is moving away from the representation of functions and from architectural typology towards autonomy' excess' nostalgia and spectacle. The ‘wow!' factor is what counts.
The result is an architecture of grand gestures and big names. It is not political or religious power or the representation of community that lies behind the attention-grabbing' monumental constructions of today. These are the cathedrals of the leisure culture – museums and arts complexes' airports' mega-malls' hybrid mixed-use complexes' hotel-casino resorts – which seem to lay claim to an exalted status purely on the basis of their size. Popular culture has turned architecture into a brand logo; architectural design is entertainment ‘capital' used in a targeted way by investors' politicians and brand strategists as a magnet for the public and a marketing instrument and' above all' as a source of profit.
The French writer Michel Houellebecq sums it up as follows: ‘Contemporary architecture implicitly takes on a simple agenda: it builds the shelves of society's supermarket. The logic of the supermarket necessarily leads to a dispersal of desire. And this superficial' shallow participation in the life of the world is designed to replace the longing for existence.' According to Houellebecq' if ‘modern architecture is no longer called upon' to ‘build places to live in'' then it will come to see itself as an inventor of environments for passers-by' visitors and travellers' and of consumer attractions.
Architects are in demand as suppliers of spectacle. Event architecture – opening up the city as an arena for events – is made possible only by what the German architect Axel Schultes criticized as the ‘architectural audacities of egomaniacs'. The Bauhaus ideal of the democratization of the arts becomes the vulgarization of style. Supposedly distinctive architectural images are increasingly interchangeable. A key characteristic here is architecture's detachment from its context. The invasion of the human imagination by the myths of the entertainment industry has led to a proliferation of globally compatible architectural monuments that bear no relation at all to their surroundings.
The validity of philosopher Jean Paul Baudrillard's thesis of ‘architecture's disappearance into the virtual'' where ‘reality turns into spectacle' the real becomes a theme park' is now apparent. In Las Vegas' the booming US leisure metropolis in the Nevada desert' counterfeits are piled up to the point where they become overpowering realities. For the American architects Denise Scott-Brown and Robert Venturi' who wrote the book Learning from Las Vegas more than three decades ago' a decisive change has since taken place: the change ‘from symbol to scenario'' from iconography to scenography' in which the New York skyline' the Eiffel Tower and Venice's St Mark's Square are set' chaotically and confusingly' side by side. An amusement-driven world theatre has left the auditorium to evolve into an open-air parade of curiosities. The city itself has become a cliche-laden interior; the architecture works with suggestive strategies and foreshortened perspectives' more or less turning itself into a three-dimensional stage backdrop.
To use a term coined by Robert E. Somol' professor of architecture in Los Angeles' this ‘architainment landscape' is based on a universal architectural model: the hotel-casino with attached shopping' show' conference and trade-fair facilities. Here' Endo urbanism – the transplantation and accumulation of set pieces – is inverted in the stage-set hotel' in its simulated privacy' where the strange attracts by means of the familiar. These environments for sale are temporary homes offering timebound attractions.
In the 1920s the Viennese novelist Joseph Roth described a situation that still applies to most of the thousands of hotel rooms piled on top of one another in Las Vegas: ‘In this room' fortunately' there is nothing' not a single item' that the eye would linger on with grief. When my suitcases are taken away' others will stand here. When I no longer stand at this window' others will stand here. This room creates no illusions – for itself' for you' for me. When I leave it and look back at it' it is no longer my room. The day is long' for there is no melancholy to fill it with.' The difference is that today' beyond the simple accommodation' a multitude of temptations' targeted on the senses and the wallet' awaits the traveller – all the consumer attractions in the world absorbed into a garish adventure playground for the whole family' where the only compulsion to linger is the promise of unadulterated pleasure.
It may seem that a vast chasm separates the rowdy world of Las Vegas from the subtle decors of the purist designer hotels' but the mega-palaces of kitsch and the small temples of contemporary style both offer ‘mood' architecture' carefully devised backdrops against which guests can enjoy new experiences. In this they follow the rules of the ‘experience economy' analysed by the authors B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore' which operates in a highly manipulative way: ‘Theatre is not a metaphor but a model. Staging experiences is not about entertaining customers' it's about engaging them.' Ian Schrager' who remains a trendsetter in the elite sector with his Starck hotels' compares the hotel's spatial layout with a play: the lobby is the prelude' the first act of the hotel's drama' which has its finale in the individual guest rooms.
In recent projects such as London's St Martin's Lane' guests can even influence their own happy ending by adjusting the stage lighting in their rooms to the colours they desire. Interiors are planned to the last detail. Restaurants' signs' graphic designs and the appearance of the hotel personnel have to meet' in a clear and consistent way' the expectations of a cosmopolitan public well versed in the language of fashion and advertising. ‘They were the messengers of the Lord' selected for their upright stature and attractive faces – advantages that were amply exhibited in their carriage and the look in their eyes. They were angels of this world.' This is how' in the 1930s' the German writer Wolfgang Koeppen saw the reception staff in the parallel and more beautiful universe that a hotel represents. To bring his vision up to date' the only thing you would have to add would be the name of the exclusive designer or brand responsible for creating the angels' uniforms.
‘Image transfer' is an increasingly important concept in both the popular and elite sectors of the hotel business. Leading figures in modern architecture such as the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and the Swiss duo Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have been engaged by the fashion company Prada to design its new flagship stores and headquarters – the hotelier Ian Schrager invited the same stars to design the Astor Palace in New York's SoHo' the first new-build hotel in his luxury chain' before he changed his mind and transfered the project to the even more illustruous Frank O. Gehry. Schrager's local competitor Andre Balasz responded by having his latest hotel project' the Broadway – just a few blocks away – designed by Jean Nouvel. The battle for customers' attention is fought between star architects in Manhattan in just the same way as it is fought between gigantic postcard panoramas of fictional and non-fictional sites.
The booming ‘experience' economy
In the fiercely competitive market place of global tourism' money is more important than style. In the untroubled times before the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC' regions and cities anywhere in the world can get themselves on the holiday map within a few years by making huge investments in tourism. The best example is Dubai in the United Arab Emirates' which has established a place for itself in the luxury market sector at enormous expense' thereby securing a degree of independence from declining oil revenues. Even such a traditional millionaires' hideaway as Monte Carlo is embarking on a lavish development programme with the aim of attracting affluent young gamblers with families as well as its more mature clientele.
Disneyland Paris has more than twice as many visitors as the Louvre; . The figures speak for themselves: the boom in the ‘experience' economy' characterized by artificially confected entertainment packages' is the engine driving the global boom in tourism. The hotel business is a highly profitable component of the tourist ‘value creation' chain' and vertically integrated travel groups are becoming ever more heavily involved in this sector.
At the same time' mid-market hotels are coming under pressure. The budget sector is recording steady growth rates' although the highest rates of growth are in the four- and five-star sector. Major national and international hotel chains are responding to increasing diversification by developing strategies to target particular customer groups. For example' Marriott International' based in Atlanta' USA' is marketing its total of nearly 400'000 beds worldwide under 12 different brands. Former national chains are expanding into international markets' while international chains are consolidating their global presence. The Singapore-based Raffles Group is opening a new luxury hotel in Berlin' and the French group Sofitel is opening one in Chicago.
At the same time the economic life of hotels is getting shorter: hotel projects are now planned over amortization periods of only 10 to 15 years; there is an increasing demand for the new.
Investors now decide on a particular designer or style at a very early stage in the development of a hotel' and operators have to live with these choices when they are supplied with completely fitted turnkey hotels – as was the case with the Ritz-Carlton in Wolfsburg and the Grand Hyatt in Berlin. Such a separation between the operational business and the design process remains an exception' however. In large-scale mixed-use projects the hotel increasingly performs an anchor role. A hotel in a commercial mall is designed as a prime public attraction' drawing in not only hotel guests but also the general public. In the heart of Berlin' a former communist hotel block was demolished to make way for the new ‘DomAquaree'' where a 30m high cylindrical saltwater aquarium' big enough for sharks and rays' will be a permanent attraction in the atrium of the new Radisson hotel. The two-storey lift taking guests up to the health centre on the top floor ‘floats' right through the aquarium. Generally' restaurants and shopping areas are becoming ever more important elements in a hotel complex' making the hotel a focal point in the urban environment and a place where local folk can meet and socialize. Single-use buildings – used purely for accommodation or conferences – are a thing of the past.
A current trend in the world of hotel design is the replication of a successful formula. Ian Schrager's ‘one-offs' are opening at an ever faster rate – the existing establishments currently have a combined total of 5400 beds and seven new hotels will be added by 2002' including the St Moritz in New York (in addition to the Astor Palace mentioned above)' the Clifton in San Francisco and the Miramar in Santa Barbara. ‘I think the market is infinite because it's about stimulation' subversion' freshness'' says Schrager. Dirk Gadeke' the founder of the European Art'otels Group' is clearly thinking along similar lines. He is planning 40 new art hotels under a franchising arrangement in collaboration with the Park Plaza chain.
The trend is evident in everything from original designs to brand image. The Dorint Group of Germany' once very conservative in style' has repositioned itself further upmarket by opening city hotels with an emphasis on design. W Suites' the design hotel subsidiary of the world's largest hotel group' Starwood – which also includes Westin and the St Regis luxury group' among others – continues to consolidate its position in the USA and is planning a move into international markets. A series of new ‘style hotels' is planned to rejuvenate the portfolio of the UK's Hilton group – starting with the Trafalgar hotel in London. Smaller chains' such as the UK's Firmdale Hotels or California's Joie de Vivre group' are successfully serving a more offbeat customer base. The booking and marketing group Design Hotels is flourishing' too' with more than 100 hotels currently under its wing. The ‘boutique hotel' (more compact and individual in its design than average)' which has long been the province of the avant-garde' is now recognized as a successful model for small luxury hotels' in urban and rural settings.
Another aspect of the replication strategy – whether it applies to groups or to individual hotels – is the drive to develop a cohesive brand image and extend this image to include the hotel's furnishings and fittings. Merchandizing outlets – where guests can buy or order furniture and accessories – are not so much a symptom of today's trivia culture as a welcome additional source of revenue for top hotels from Ritz-Carlton through to the Schrager group. The idea of translating the splendour of the Gleneagles hotel in Scotland into a new luxury brand for upmarket consumer goods may have been abandoned' but parts of the concept were used in the renovation of this high-class establishment.
The upmarket hotel sector has attracted top names in the fashion world' some of whom have followed successful licensing deals for perfumes and cosmetics with a leap into interior design collections' making hotels the logical next step. Versace' Ferragamo and Bulgari have launched joint ventures with groups such as Marriott and Kempinski. At the popular end of the spectrum' global consumer brands are waking up to the potential of hotels: in 2001 the fast food giant McDonald's opened its first hotel in Zurich; famous names in the ‘experience' restaurant trade such as Hard Rock Cafe and House of Blues are already active in the hotel sphere.
Although the economic fallout of the September 11 terrorist attacks has cast even darker clouds over the international tourist trade than over other industries' the general upward trend is still unbroken. Bookings and occupancies are temporarily affected' investments postponed' but there are already signs of recovery.
The authenticity of illusion
Human beings create their own images of desire and then set out in pursuit of them. These are simulacra: ideals' visions' idols. Pilgrims and travellers have a great deal in common' and unspoiled nature serves merely as a backdrop for the experiences we thirst after. The denunciation of tourism is as old as organized mass travel itself. When the poet William Wordsworth vehemently attacked the construction of a railway line serving his beloved Lake District in 1844' he was reacting to the consequences of his own romantic vision of the place' which had made it an attraction for nature-hungry city dwellers.
Since then the tourist industry has been a driving force in consumer society and at the same time a symbol of its self-destructive powers. Even a representative of the architectural avant-garde such as Elia Zenghelis acknowledges this paradox: ‘The tourists' invasion violates the"purity" of this culture' which the traveller searches for in vain. Their arrival has a devastating impact in the locality and their departure leaves ineffable melancholy and desolation.' Travel as a luxury item was democratized through mass modes of transport – first the train' then the aeroplane – but the relentless process of social levelling has turned global diversity into a colourful picture-postcard landscape' all the more so in the post-industrial age. The fate of Campione on Lake Garda illustrates the way things are going: the village once housed workers from the local cotton-spinning mill (long since closed down); now Cartier boss Dominique Perrin plans to transform it into a peaceful' exclusive holiday hideaway for the idle rich.
Yet perhaps simulation itself becomes authentic when it overlies the inherited reality' annexes it and simultaneously becomes a point of reference in itself. There is no doubt that Las Vegas and Disney World have attained the status of originals – originals that others quote and imitate. For the American art critic David Hickey' Las Vegas is even ‘the only authentic image world on the North American continent'. In Las Vegas' artificial worlds are adorned with genuine artistic masterpieces and original architecture. Behind the glittering facades on the imitation Lake Como shirt-sleeved visitors to Hotel Bellagio can see works by Picasso' Mondrian and other modern masters.
There is no way back. The alliance of true art and contemporary architecture in an artificial setting is the logical development of the new image-driven and image-consuming global culture' contradicting the argument that original works and reproductions are incompatible. High-profile ‘wow!' architects have been working for the Disney group for the past two decades. Even the casino moguls of Las Vegas will opt for top-name architects when they decide to update their phantasmagorias.
The issue can be approached in a different way by looking at the new hotel oases in far-flung' exotic regions of the globe. What is more honest: the graceful Rajvilas – a deceptively ‘genuine' simulation in the fairytale world of Rajasthan – or the brave concrete modernism of Four Seasons Sayan in the picturesque mountains of Bali? Which is more beautiful or more culturally appropriate?
The American novelist Mario Puzo describes Las Vegas as ‘a place of refuge from reality' from impending worries' from true feelings'. The last part of this statement is arguably wrong' for the feelings are real' irreplaceable. The consumer as traveller seeks distraction and edification' and experiences illusions as actual happenings: the creation of authenticity becomes an art form in itself. This is not a new idea. The German classicist Friedrich Schiller summed it up as early as 1795: ‘Indifference to the reality and an interest in the illusion represent a true expansion of humanity and a decisive step towards culture.'
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