GrandHotelSalone Milan - New Hotel Design Around the world in six days
GrandHotelSalone: the tradition of hospitality gets a new lease of life thanks to the Italian furniture industry's ability to translate the ideas and inspiration of ten illustrious international architects into real products.
GrandHotelSalone, the event dedicated to the hotel and hospitality industry, takes place in Milan on 10-15 April 2002, concomitantly with the Saloni furniture shows (Salone Internazionale del Mobile, Salone del Complemento d'Arredo, Eurocucina, Eimu.2002 Comfort & Technology and SaloneSatellite). The venue is Pavilion 9 of the Milan Fairgrounds, the only one open to the public at large throughout the six day event.
The whole idea arose out of the awareness that Italian furniture, known the world over for its creativity and style, could represent a fundamental resource for developing the hospitality segment of the industry.
The public space of the GrandHotelSalone, designed by the show's curator, Adam D. Tihany and furnished by some of Italy's foremost manufacturers, function like a real hotel. The reception area is fully operational: the Front Desk, where visitors make enquiries, leave messages, make travel reservations or arrange tickets for shows and exhibitions, is run by students from the Amerigo Vespucci hotel school; the Quiet Lounge offers comfortable armchairs for reading the papers and relaxing; the Wine Bar, open every day, serves the finest Italian wines; the Media Lounge screens films throughout the day; and shoppers will enjoy the well stocked Gift Shop, selling catalogs and books about design and designers, and assorted travel goods.
Over recent years hotel restaurants have gone to great lengths to provide food and furnishings to make hotel stays a memorable experience.
So as an event within the event, the GrandHotelSalone Restaurant will feature a fully equipped open kitchen, where three world class chefs will each coordinate two of the six daily menus. The chefs are: Fabio Picchi of Il Cibreo, Florence, Thomas Keller of The French Laundry in Napa Valley and Sirio Maccioni of Le Cirque 2000, New York.
However, the highlight of the GrandHotelSalone is that it offers the chance to visit the five continents of the globe, without leaving Milan.
The curator in fact invited ten internationally renowned architects to design a bedroom for ten different cities-to give their own personal interpretation of one of the world's great metropolises through "the hotel room of the future".
Each architect was given the same guidelines and asked to create a room for a city other than the place they ordinarily live and work in: a totally new approach to designing hotels, light years away from the usual bland, standard styles adopted everywhere.
The prototypes were manufactured by ten top Italian furniture companies, which also produce for the hospitality segment.
- Berlin, a city fast becoming the new cultural heart of Central Europe, was assigned to Legorreta+Legorreta, who proposes a totally novel relationship between the area set aside for rest and relaxation (the sleeping quarters) and the place for grooming and ablutions (the bathroom).
- Given the city of Hong Kong, Matteo Thun interprets his vision of China with minimalist décor, clean lines and an alternation of symbols and silences.
- London, a melting pot for different peoples and cultures, is the location for the room designed by Vico Magistretti who wants the passing guest to feel the typical warmth of "a home away from home".
- Quite the opposite view is taken for the hotel room set in Mexico City by Ron Arad: for this architect, hotels should provide a welcome break from routine, and offer a unique form of enjoyment.
- For a capital city in transition suspended in a sort of "time warp", Gaetano Pesce's Moscow room caters to all of the senses, with objects that appear to float in mid-air.
- Toyo Ito decided to change his design for the New York bedroom after the events of September 11, dedicating the new version to business travelers accustomed to the hectic pace of the Big Apple, for whom the hotel bedroom is a retreat in which to pray and meditate.
- A glass shower cubicle forms the central focus of the Paris bedroom created by Richard Meier, in which stunning lighting effects emphasize the interplay of gentle enveloping curves and stark, straight lines.
- For his project set in Rome, Arata Isozaki sought his inspiration in the adventures of a traveller on the Silk Road as described by Italian author Alessandro Baricco in his novel Seta.
- The Sydney bedroom created by Zaha Hadid is essentially an open space in which the surfaces are all unidirectional and the bathroom area, simply curtained off from the rest of the room, contains fully recessed units.
- In Jean Nouvel's room designed for downtown Tokyo, a fast-paced, high-tech metropolis, the window is a sort of camera lens through which the indoor environment assimilates the outside "atmosphere".
Under Moderator Paul Goldberger, the ten architects involved in the project will be on hand at an International Conference scheduled for April 10, 2.30pm, in the GrandHotelSalone exhibit.