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Hotel Hipsters
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By: Ben Crawford, Issue 42 – Autumn 2010
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(Design Hotel Designers)
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THE CONCEPT OF THE HIP HOTEL HAS BEEN WITH US NOW FOR THREE DECADES. BEN CRAWFORD TAKES A LOOK AT WHAT THE ORIGINAL AND THE BEST “DESIGN HOTEL” DESIGNERS HAVE DONE LATELY.
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David Collins
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The social life in London wouldn’t be what it is today without David Collins and his flair for creating comfortable surroundings with the finest materials and through designs that escape categorization as either traditional or modern. Not only did Collins style The Wolseley – the Piccadilly restaurant where the top people in finance, media, arts and shopping convene en masse from breakfast to closing time. He also designed The Blue Bar in Knightsbridge’s The Berkeley Hotel. Its interior completely coloured in “Lutyens Blue” paint, it is as seductive as a giant jewelry box, and it has contained the likes of Madonna and Leonardo de Caprio in its dark corners. Among his countless assignments designing yachts, ski chalets, boutiques and more, hotels have recently begun to figure, starting with The Londons in New York and Los Angeles – delivering luxury with a discreet British style, and his most recent project, Lime Wood in the heart of Hampshire’s New Forest National Park.
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Philippe Starck
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Arguably the best known designer of our times, Philippe Starck took the baton from Andree Putman and really ran with it - styling seven hotels for Ian Schrager, starting with The Royalton in New York in 1988. For The Delano – the first of what is now an entire precinct of hip design hotels on Collins Avenue in Miami’s South Beach – he created spaces tailor-made for posing photo-shoot-style, by decorating the rooms in all-white, and breaking up the immense lobby space with flowing drapes and oversized furniture. He then proceeded to bring a similar feel to London with The Sanderson and St Martins Lane for Schrager and most recently the Palazzina Grassi in Venice. And although he is continuing with the luxe boutique style with the SLS chain for another nightcub owner, Sam Mazarian, Starck has also started branching out unexpectedly with the heavy red velvet of Buenos Aires’s Faena Hotel + Universe, and the eclectic budget hotel Mama Shelter in a Parisian banlieue.
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Andree Putman
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Andree Putman creates disciplined classicist environments as a stage for people of style to interact among masterpieces of twentieth century furniture. As well as designing the interior of the Concorde for Air France and an updated Steamer Bag for Louis Vuitton, she is said to have invented the “boutique hotel” in 1982 with her work on Morgan’s, the first hotel of former Studio 54 impresarios, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell (who coined the phrase). It combined a striking lobby in checkerboard black and white with the guest rooms combining elegant furnishings with concealed mood lighting, brilliantly bringing elegance and mystery to small rooms without views. Her other must-see hotel projects include Pershing Hall in Paris, with its famous “vertical garden,” the converted water tower Wasserturm in Cologne, and of course the Putman serviced apartments in Hong Kong.
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Christian Liaigre
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Liaigre was catapulted to fame in 1990 for his European take on the boutique hotel with the relaunch of the Montalembert in Paris, which combined Louis Philippe, Art Deco and modern furniture, with mirrored bathrooms accented with his signature use of bamboo sprigs. Liaigre was then engaged by Uma Thurman’s ex, Andre Balazs, to design The Mercer in 2000 – famously preferred by arts and media leaders including notoriously Russell Crowe and Rupert Murdoch (who then hired Liaigre to design his Soho loft). Perhaps best known today for his work on private residences and his furniture line, Liaigre’s environments can also be experienced by travellers at Le Sereno Beach in St Barts, and one of the world’s most beautiful restaurants, Hakkasan in London.
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Olga Polizzi
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As varied as Olga Polizzi’s hotel designs are, they are consistently twentieth-centurymodern while retaining the character of the original buildings that house them. The eldest daughter of the late Lord Forte, she started her career in the 1980s designing for her father’s hotel chain, and continued in partnership with her brother, launching Rocco Forte Collection in 1996. Her achievements include the purpose-built Lowry Hotel in Manchester, the extraordinary The Augustine in Prague, using thirteen buildings including the 13th century Augustinian St. Thomas Monastery, and the restored and revived Browns in London, Amigo in Brussels and the Hotel de Rome in Berlin. Next for Polizzi are four projects all in the Middle East.
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David Rockwell
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He designed the set for the Oscars this year, as well as for such smash hit productions as Hairspray and Legally Blonde. As an interior designer he is probably most feted as the stylist of the Nobu restaurants, renowned for its sublime Miso Black Cod, and for including Robert de Niro among its owners. However Rockwell’s hotel credits are equally as auspicious: He was hired in the late 1990s by Starwood CEO Barry Sterlicht to set the design template for the first chain of boutique hotels, W. Rockwell responded to the challenge with draped columns and furniture in massive lobbies, and beds floating in the centre of the bedrooms. His more recent endeavours include Andaz Wall Street in New York, where Art Deco meets Tribeca warehouse style, and The Belvedere in Mykonos, with its yacht-inspired built-ins and carved rosewood millwork features bringing a moody sophistication to the building’s clean Grecian lines. He has also teamed up again with Starwood, to create Aloft, hybrid boutique hotel/roadside motel chain.
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Anouska Hempel
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“Nou-Nou” Hempel grew up in Cronulla, NSW, and went on to become a Bond girl, a frock maker for Princess Diana, and a pioneering hotel designer. She created an early prototype for the boutique hotel in 1978 with Blakes in London. While its public spaces successfully meld a safari lodge feel with a Scandinavian sensibility, the rooms range in theme from Victorian to Beidermeier to an all-white take on Provencal, through to sumptuous purple rooms inspired by the robes of Cardinals. She went on to design The Hempel, the first minimalist hotel that succeeds in achieving comfort with a Zen aesthetic of stark geometry and bare wood and polished stone and concrete. Her new projects include the Grosvenor House Apartments and the La Suite Hotels, in London and Warapuru in Brazil.
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