Luna2 Studios Hotel
Dar HI
25hours Hotel Number One
Hotel Silken Puerta America
Hotel Yasmin
Hotel Tomo
Palazzo Abagnale
Hotel La Renaissance
The Roxbury
December, 2013
Paul Valéry said it first, but Yogi Berra said it best: “the future ain’t what it used to be.” And to look at these nine retro-futuristic hotels, we’d have to agree. Each feels a bit like a time capsule, capturing a moment when the future was looking more Jetsons, less World War Z.
1.
Luna2 Studios
Seminyak, Bali — Billed as “cosmic spaces for jet-setting lunatics,” the rooms at Luna2 feel somehow both familiarly Mod and utterly out of this world, with Pop art and Op art aplenty, lots of primary color and plenty of polished chrome. In the Lunaplex, a sixteen seat-cinema with psychedelic patterns on the walls and floors, a friendly “flight attendant” serves both popcorn-infused cocktails and (thankfully not popcorn-infused) Champagne.
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2.
Dar Hi
Nefta, Tunisia — If Matali Crasset’s interiors at Dar Hi look both futuristic and slightly Seventies at the same time (and they do), perhaps it’s the influence of some local cinematic history; several Star Wars scenes were filmed nearby, the result of which is a strange feeling of familiarity with the Tunisian desert for guests steeped in American pop culture. And it seems that the edge of the Sahara continues to be a good place to peer into the future, especially from rooms with views like these.
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3.
25 Hours Hotel Number 1
Hamburg — They lay it on lightly at this converted Sixties office block, but there’s a touch of Jetsons-style midcentury futurism if you look past all the post-modern design flourishes. You’ll find some fine Eames- and Saarinen-esque shell chairs to plop into, some bold Op-inspired wallpaper, and an unmissable reception desk covered in polished aluminum. Though the rooms have been designed by several young, up-and-coming designers, they’re all cut from the same retro-modern cloth.
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4.
Hotel Silken Puerta America
Madrid — Whether the future of hotel design will be a wash of white or a riot of color still feels like something of an open question, and the all-star designers behind this hotel seem to come down on different sides of the argument. On the one hand there’s Zaha Hadid’s sci-fi inspired monochrome Space Club rooms looking like updated sets from Kubrick’s 2001, and on the other are Jean Nouvel’s suites with ceilings whose colors evoke a sort of primordial-cosmic tie-dye.
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5.
Hotel Yasmin
Prague — With its profusion of metallic orbs floating around all the public spaces, Hotel Yasmin looks at times like a super-sized, live-in pinball machine, only instead of bumpers and flippers the props are mid-century design fixtures and bizarre Seuss-like pieces of installation art. It’s definitely a different take on the aesthetics of the Space Age, and further still from the Gothic romance of Prague’s castles and cobblestone streets.
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6.
Hotel Tomo
San Francisco — It’s amazing what an inspired design team can do with an old Best Western. This former chain hotel in San Francisco’s Japantown looks like the childhood fantasy of an early Nineties gamer or anime-geek come to life — a concept that really shouldn’t work, but somehow does. Japanese pop references abound, with plenty of actual video games and animated surfaces to complement the slightly retro, subtly Scandinavian-style furnishings.
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7.
Palazzo Abagnale
Sorrento, Italy — Palazzo Abagnale is more retro than futuristic, but still, it’s retro in a way that recalls a time when plastics and brightly colored Pop art looked like a glimpse of a bright, oncoming future. One could easily imagine these rooms existing either decades ago or in decades to come; either way, they feel like they exist outside of time. All the more so because the hotel is set in a postcard-perfect part of Tuscany, with Mount Vesuvius looming in the background.
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8.
Hotel La Renaissance
Marrakech — With lots of lime green and blinding white, plenty of chrome furniture (plus the occasional floating silver sphere), and a few globs of plasticized-looking furniture, Hotel La Renaissance hits all the key notes for a retro-futuristic hotel, looking back to its mid-century heyday in its own futuristic way. Best of all is the Seventies-themed suite, with its repeating pops of primary color and its glowing pod-like alcoves containing Moroccan ceramics.
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9.
The Roxbury
Roxbury, New York — Lately we can’t get enough of the retro pop-culture wonderland that is the Roxbury. This time we’re smitten with the hotel’s Final Frontier suite, where a mural turns one of the walls into a galactic windshield, and where the living room looks like the bridge of a certain famous starship. For something just as far out but ever-so-slightly less geeky, there’s also the Razzle Dazzle room, complete with futuristic finishes and mosaic tiles made of good old-fashioned glitter.
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