HOSPITALITY
Down-to-earth is
out the window
as hospitality
venues become
SUPERNATURAL,
HIGH-SPIRITED
ESCAPES
‘IT’S NO LONGER ABOUT escaping reality;
it’s about getting as real as you can get,’ we
wrote in Frame 118, describing a tendency in
the hospitality industry that favours an uber-
local approach. It’s a development that’s
prompted one-off hotels to create environ-
ments with a strong sense of place and
spurred chains to give each outlet a unique,
site-specific appearance – in the manner of
rapidly expanding homestay services such
as Airbnb. All units operated by Generator
Hostels, for example, reflect the cities they
inhabit, while Noma’s pop-up restaurants
in Australia and Mexico prioritized ingre-
dients, design and resources obtained from
their direct surroundings. The ultimate goal:
to make guest feel as if they’re part of the
local community.
Although hospitality has had its foot
in the local pool for some time now, there
have been striking exceptions. In London,
the India Mahdavi-designed restaurant
Sketch can be compared to Tim Burton’s
Alice in Wonderland, and visitors to the
Fondazione Prada in Milan are invited to
enjoy themselves at Bar Luce, a space con-
ceived by filmmaker Wes Anderson. Withtheir out-of-this-world interiors, such venues
offer the retreat from everyday life that so
many of us crave. All round the globe, other
additions to the hospitality business promise
an even greater profusion of escape routes.
The word ‘lavish’ doesn’t even begin
to describe the newly opened Mondrian
Doha, which marks the first – but certainly
not the last – venture of privately held
lifestyle hospitality company SBE into the
Middle East. Located in the city’s West
Bay Lagoon neighbourhood, the luxurious
complex – a 270-room hotel with eight
restaurants and bars – was designed by
South West Architecture in collaboration
with Dutch designer Marcel Wanders, who
was responsible for the exuberant interi-
ors. The building is in the shape of a falcon,
Qatar’s national bird. Wanders’ fantasti-
cal indoor environments are derived in
part from One Thousand and One Nights,
a compilation of Middle Eastern folk tales
that lends the space a narrative character.
Although elements of the interior reference
the Arab culture – from ornate calligraphy
to souks – guests are more likely to divine
an alternative reality than a place that »Feng Shao
SPACES 111