How Hotels Became More Than Just a Place to Stay | cntraveler.com

The Maxwell Federal Prison Camp in Montgomery, Alabama, is a campus of pale boxy dormitories on tidy grass lawns. Inside, minimum-security inmates live in small cubicle-style enclosures with steel furniture. Outside, lush Southern vegetation contrasts with the severe lines of the architecture. That’s one unlikely inspiration, according to legend, for the minimalist-meets-surrealist aesthetic—all white walls, metallic fixtures, sculptural...