Along with a number of other designers, I was asked to furnish four rooms for the Maastricht Hotel Management School. Being a school, the project should or could be experimental in nature for students and guests, who were to serve as guinea pigs. I visited the hotel this afternoon for a photo shoot in the grey room. Since everything in the room is grey, the photos take on a painting-like quality, and there I sat surrealistically in my own painting.
The tour of all the rooms was an eye-opener. And here I thought that we had really done our best, but apparently all of the designers had put forth maximum effort. And lucky for that, since I was already feeling like a bit of a sap, assuming we had once again gone overboard.
So the one room was a grey room in which everything was painted the same colour as the linens. The room is filled with a motley collection of stuff from the attic, our own collection, and the second-hand shop (which Jeanine took care of), and all of it and everything else in the room is one and the same colour. The result is a freakishly surrealistic effect.
Each of the three other rooms had a different theme: ‘all-in-one object’, modular system, and family bedroom. The ‘all-in-one object’ stands in the middle of the room like a work of art, but could just as easily be placed in any random space. The modular system consists of stainless steel square tubes that are boarded together and which can be assembled anywhere and everywhere, tailored to a specific space. The family room is made of scrap wood and has an extra bunk bed to alleviate the inconvenience of staying at a hotel with (small) children.
In the beginning, the project was a bit dramatic due to the huge amount of endless communication. As far as I’m concerned, you’d be better off simply having a little faith and setting to work. But the end result is quite extraordinary: a hotel filled with rooms in which countless designers have truly given it their all.
Photography: Thomas Mayer
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