The Andaz Hotel in Amsterdam by Dutch designer Marcel Wanders features chandeliers encased inside huge bells and wallpaper that combines fish with cutlery (+ slideshow).
The hotel occupies a 35-year-old library building in the centre of Amsterdam, so Marcel Wanders wanted his design to incorporate elements of the city's heritage alongside imagery from historic books.
Combining a mixture of different styles, Andaz Amsterdam is filled with furniture and objects that reference the Dutch Golden Age and Delft ceramics, alongside tulips and the colour orange.
The centrepiece of the lobby is an installation modelled on a constellation of stars and planets. Positioned below a large skylight, the suspended objects and lighting are intended to remind visitors of old-fashioned astronomy.
The bell-shaped chandeliers hang just below the installation, illuminating a row of reception desks, while a collection of Dutch ornaments and curiosities are displayed on a bookcase behind.
The hotel contains 122 guest rooms, each featuring custom-made wallpaper. Designed to illustrate the city's position as "a cultural melting pot", the designs stitches together pairs of unrelated elements, such as a fish and a spoon.
A restaurant, bar, lounge and library are grouped together on the ground floor of the hotel. There's also a garden that features tulips, chequerboard paving and mischievous-looking statues.
Several of Wanders' own furniture designs are included, such as his Big Ben clock, the Monster Chair and the Skygarden suspension light.
Other hotel interiors by the designer include the Kameha Grand Bonn hotel in Germany and Mondrian South Beach in Miami Beach. See more design by Marcel Wanders »
Here's a project description from the designer's studio:
Andaz Amsterdam
Andaz Amsterdam is designed to be a sophisticated hotel that has the relaxed nature of the people and the city in which it lives. Located in the very centre of Amsterdam, between two major canals the Prinsengracht (Princes canal) and the Keizersgracht (Emperors canal) inspired the logic that the hotel beat with same heart as the city – thus the golden age, delft blue, navigation and adventure and the cities vibrant knowledge economy all inform the look and feel of the hotel.
As a space that will accommodate visitors to the city, the hotel is intended to be a vessel that instantly connects people to place, it is designed to offer a local experience for international people, and also be a key venue for those who live in the city and want to showcase their heritage and hospitality.
The building that holds to hotel is that of the former public library of Amsterdam. The library stood from 1977 until 2007 when it was relocated to Oosterdokseiland, and this heritage informs the design direction of the hotel with books both physical and deconstructed forming the look and feel. Specifically, the imagery of historic books about and from Amsterdam serve as inspiration for the wallpaper and other graphic décor, and creates a space the visitor to Amsterdam and offers an authentic local experience.
Along with books, video art is a medium that will be visible within the hotel, as like reading, viewing video art is a process that requires time, and so a hotel is a perfect place to offer both these resources.
Amsterdam is the capital of democracy, there is a lot of freedom and we invented the idea of tolerance platform for politics. Amsterdammers are able to combine things that are not usually able to be combined, thus a major theme within this overall design is the idea of 'connected polarities', two individual non-related elements that are stitched together to form a new logical whole. The Amsterdam city logo is three xxx and if you look at them as embroidery stitches you can fit things together and connect them.
