News: British sculptor Antony Gormley has added a crouched figure containing a guest suite to the facade of a London hotel.
Gormley's giant anthropomorphic ROOM sculpture is made up of rectangular blocks that form a shape of a man crouched with his arms around his needs.
The hollow figure sits on a section of flat roof at the new Beaumont Hotel in Mayfair. The space inside measures just four square metres, with a 10-metre-high ceiling and a small window positioned between the legs of the sculpture. Guests will be able to stay in the room for £2,500 per night when the hotel opens later this year.
"I take the body as our primary habitat," said Gormley in a statement. "ROOM contrasts a visible exterior of a body formed from large rectangular masses with an inner experience."
"Shutters over the window provide total blackout and very subliminal levels of light allow me to sculpt darkness itself," Gormley added. "My ambition for this work is that it should confront the monumental with the most personal, intimate experience."
The Beaumont is the first hotel venture for restaurateurs Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, and is due to open in the autumn.
Another of Antony Gormley's sculptures appears to guard the entrance to his own galvanised steel workshop, designed by London architects Carmody Groarke.