Would you rather share a bathroom with Pritzker Prize-winning architects Sir Norman Foster or Zaha Hadid? Neither? Maybe you'd prefer to be with marquee-name designers Marc Newson, Ron Arad or Javier Mariscal, or the lesser known Arata Isozaki, Kathryn Findlay or Victorio & Lucchino? These are some of the choices you have at Hotel Puerta America in Madrid, Spain, where each of its 12 floors are designed by a different architect at a lavish expense. The project took four years to build and opened last year. It has to be the most unique designer hotel in the world.
 I arrived after a five-hour drive from San Sebastian, where I'd been visiting our designer and manufacturer Stua. As I was craving a relaxing soak, it was a setback to learn my Sir Norman Foster room didn't have a bathtub. No problemo. At the front desk is a book that shows what each floor offers in facilities and style, and the staff is both skilled and friendly in assigning rooms to fit your needs. I swapped to a Zaha Hadid room. It appeared to be one of the most original spaces in the hotel. The overall whiteness was appealing, and Hadid had been on my mind since earlier that day in Rioja, where I'd seen a wine tasting room she designed. Best of all, the room appeared to have a large and formidable tub.
 You get to each designer room through a foyer off the security-controlled elevator shaft and you are not allowed to use the stairway. On the Hadid floor you are greeted by a space-age flowing chandelier that changes color and is suspended just low enough to smack your head if you are not careful. Inside the room, the experience is one continuous sculptural flow of white Corian® turns and bends and sensual, nebulous shapes. There are heavy sliding doors and thick shelves and tables coming out of walls with a weight and feel that are dense and solid, while being ethereal in tone. You will find neither straight lines nor flat surfaces. Rest your water glass next to your bed and it may slide off. Hang on to your toothpaste. And, to maintain a feeling of divine form over basic function, the pristine room was without trash receptacles. The light switches were magical, once I figured out how to use them. The window shutters, TV and ambience are controllable from one spot, on the bed. There are dazzling feats of technology and innovation in a Star-Wars-meets-Antoni-Gaudi white sanctuary.
The true test came in the tub, a wild flowing basin of curves that morphed into the wall, like a pool for polar bears at the zoo. I felt a little like a character in March of the Penguins, sliding around trying to lather up, as there is no spot that works as a backrest. I never found the faucet to fill this huge tub, so I improvised with the modern showerhead: a feisty contraption that went berserk under pressure, like a Water Wiggle, spraying the entire ceiling and walls until it was strangled into submission. The pure white space is hard to photograph, but I've attempted it with these photos. There was nothing in the room that was common or traditional, except for maybe the mattress. Innovation was obvious at every turn; a visual and textural playground, provocative, spacious and challenging.
 I spent the next night in Sir Norman Foster's place, a high-tech study in materials with a clean and rational sense of form and function. What it shared with Hadid's room were challenging light switches, a lack of trash receptacles and an essential purity of form. Great attention to detail was paid to materials, including white leather doors, slabs of backlit onyx as countertops, and playful round lights. On the hotel's website, the room is described as "a friendly place, where nothing is anonymous, because sensuality can always be recognized." I'm not sure what this really means, but the lack of anonymity extends to the bathroom, which is exposed to the room to either create intimacy or prevent privacy. The shower experience was akin to an industrial car wash. Powerful jets (when you figure out how to work them) come at you from three levels. An elliptical cocoon of glass, the shape of the shower was beautiful, like no other shower stall I've ever experienced, a serene place in which to think about the day. With no place to put my razor or soap, I put them on the metal grid floor, which was kind of silly, but the grid floor did feel nice on my feet, so there was that trade-off. Precision seems to be Foster's mantra, and yet the room makes you think, adjust and take nothing for granted.
 In addition to Hadid's and Foster's, there are 10 other floors, each one created by a different designer or architect. I was given a quick tour of each one, and they vary enormously. There are surprises, like the floor by Javier Mariscal, which I was told was "the most functional, as Mariscal has designed hotels before and has learned from previous mistakes." The Arata Isozaki floor was the most serene. The Ron Arad floor struck me as the most provocative, and the Richard Gluckman floor was the most elegant. Puerta America is a theme park of design, and shows a commitment to materials and technology at the expense of overall function, so it's not quintessential modern as we know it. Of the hundreds of photos I took, I've decided to show you mostly bathrooms, to keep consistent with the clean theme of this essay. To check out the floors yourself, use their website.
 One aspect of the hotel that is not communicated through the rooms is the spacious and wonderful lobby. The work of John Pawson, this light-filled modern space, with its light wood walls and travertine floors, is a welcome relief from typical designer dark disco lobbies or stylish fashion. The furniture is quite nice too, including many Danish modern chairs. The adjacent bar, designed by Marc Newson, is also a very generous public space.
There is no hotel like this in the world, and no one knows this more than the maintenance staff. In a building where every floor differs in layout, materials and location of systems, maintenance may be the biggest design challenge. Two of the floors, for example, were inaccessible and "under repair" only 18 months after completion. It is fundamentally a playground for designers' fantasies, not a serious study in hotel function. However, it also happens to be an exceptionally good value (rooms begin at under 200 euro), which helps keep the spirit surprisingly unpretentious. And at that price in Madrid, the hotel stands out as a welcome alternative to an anonymous room at a generic hotel.
What I liked most about the Hotel Puerta America is that it's gutsy. To stay there is to fully experience a designer's point of view. You have to immerse yourself in it, there's nowhere to hide from it and it can be difficult to alter or get away from. It is easy to both praise and criticize the hotel's concept. On the one hand, it celebrates design; on the other, it makes you a little uncomfortable. The experience reminded me of a quote I read in a recent New Yorker from the fashion world of Jimmy Webb (buyer for the East Village store Trash and Vaudeville), who said, "It's not rock and roll if your pants don't hurt."
The hotel's website is www.hotelpuertamerica.com.
Best,
Rob Forbes
Founder
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"I would rather sleep in a bathroom than in another hotel."
–Billy Wilder
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Knoll® Classic Sale
This Friday is the start of the annual Knoll sale, and DWR is offering Free Shipping for the first three days. Sale dates: May 4–13. Free Shipping: May 4–6.
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New: Luau™ Portable Lamp
The Luau Portable Lamp makes standard table lamps look so, well, stationary. Buy in multiples and save.
Say aloha to Luau.
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New: Tuuci Razor
Always tilted toward the sun, this rotating canopy guarantees shade. It's the work of Dougan Clarke, an expert in sailboat rigging.
Stay cool with Tuuci.
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Studio Events
There's a lot happening at DWR Studios. A sampling of current events include:
The History of Knoll, at the West Palm Beach Studio
Foster & Partners presentation on sustainability and the new 20-06 Chair, at the Georgetown Studio.
See all DWR Studio events. |
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From the Design Notes blog
Today marks the opening of the Philip Johnson Glass House. Located in New Canaan, CT, the house is the newest historic site being run by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The house and its surrounding buildings, on 47-acres, embody architect Philip Johnson's modernist experimentation with forms and materials and, lucky us, it's now open to the public (by appointment only). The site's mission is to be a center point and catalyst for the preservation of modern architecture, art and landscape. Sign up now to get on their mailing list, maybe you'll even get an invite to their gala picnic in June. Even better, make your plans now to head out to Connecticut to take your very own tour with enough time to snap some pics and be inspired by this one-of-a-kind design icon...
Read this full post.
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