When planning a citytrip, for me it’s not always easy to find a nice hotel. Maybe for that reason this new hotel in Amsterdam caught my attention when I walked by a little while ago. The Exchange Hotel is a concept by Suzanne Oxenaar and Otto Nan, initatiors of the Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy. The Exchange is part of ‘The Red Carpet’, an urban-renewal project that is aimed at giving the Damrak a more diverse and fashionable look. Each room of the hotel has been designed and dressed by graduates and alumni of the Amsterdam Fashion Institute. The result: a hotel with rooms that are diverse in their concept and decoration. I had the chance to see a couple of rooms and it was a fun surprise what to find behind each door! One example is the ‘pleats room’ (shown on the nineth and tenth image), designed by Paul Hanraets. The room is inspired by the pleats and folds in a simple white T-shirt when worn, the walls of this room are fixed in a surreal composition of giant size pleats. Or the ‘Hide and Seek’ room (fifth image) by Denise de Geijter which is based on the simple purpose of clothing in which a person can hide any sign of ego or personal expression. The room is dressed entirely in plain and simple, second skin layers that hide disturbing little details like power sockets from sight.
© FoA. Images by Karlijn
In the pictures: designs by InaMatt (1,2,8,13), Malu Gehner (4,5), Denise de Geijter (3,6,7), pleats by Paul Hanraets (8,10,11), Sofie Sleumer (12), Roos Soetekouw (14,15,16,17,18)
