January 2008
How many internationally acclaimed architects does it take to change the face of boutique hotel design? Answer: 19.
It sounds like the punchline to some sort of industry joke, but at the Silken Group's Puerta America Hotel in Madrid the answer is no laughing matter.
Silken's Juan Valls takes up the story: 'we initially wanted to call in four or five internationally renowned figures. Then one thing led to another and the field expanded.' Silken enlisted the likes of Zaha Hadid, Ron Arad, David Chipperfield, Norman Foster, Jean Nouvel and Marc Newson; a dream team made up of the biggest names in design and build – Real Architecture anyone?
The Puerta America's location is either handy for the airport or a suburban enclave on the edge of a busy motorway, depending on your point of view. The external structure was developed by SGA Studio, headed by Felipe Saez de Gordoa, and is fairly standard airport hotel fare: an unobtrusive rectangular tower block.
DESIGN FREEDOM
The first real sign that there is something special going on is the cladding, devised by French architect Jean Nouvel, who exchanged the ordinariness of the exterior for a series of PVC blinds ranging in colour from yellow to red and orange to purple.
The blinds are adorned with the words of Paul Eluard's poem 'Freedom' in several different languages, hinting at the diversity of design within.
The main entrance is a raised orange pathway, slightly lower than street level on the Avenida de América side of the building. Service access is located on Calle Corazón de María.
'The hotel structure has a characteristic dihedral shape of 14 floors, with two adjoining cylindrical bodies on the ground floor: the covered entrance at the front and the back,' adds Saez de Gordoa.
Each of the 12 floors measures 1,300m², and the only constraint was that each had to contain 28 rooms and two junior suites, with the exception of the top floor, where Jean Nouvel has designed 12 luxurious suites.
Otherwise, all the design practices involved were encouraged to showcase their architectural skills without restraint, and the results show plenty of imagination and flair.
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