Hotel: The Latest Architecture and News

The TWA Hotel has opened at JFK Airport in New York. Centered on the careful restoration of Eero Saarinen’s landmark 1962 former Trans World Airlines terminal, the hotel features 512 soundproof guest rooms, restaurants, and retail outlets. The project was led by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, with two new hotel wings designed by LUBRANO CIAVARRA Architects and Stonehill Taylor, and a 50,000 square meter events center by INC Architecture & Design.

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MUDA-Architects has released details of their M50 Art Hotel project located in Pingle, Sichuan, China. Situated within an ancient town with strong musical heritage, the design process for the scheme involved exploring and activating local cultural genes, creating a landmark building that reflects its historical context, with an architecture that is forward-looking.

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Although ancient buildings carry compelling architectural presence, demolition or radical change is often their fate. While some architects prefer to introduce thoroughly new structures, others choose to honor the works of historic architects, who built the basis and foundations of structures that helped shape up cities today.

For the refurbishment of Paris’ Hotel Fouquet Barrière, located one block facing Avenue des Champs Elysées, Edouard François was selected to renovate the entire property, including offices, spa services, façade, and courtyards. François’ design strategy was rather unambiguous, using only two keywords as reference: “COPY-EDIT”; a reinterpretation of the “old” through contemporary technologies and modified material.

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Liljewall arkitekter has released details of their competition entry for a new hotel and housing complex in Varberg, on the west coast of Sweden. The site, an old industrial harbor area, is currently being transformed into a new district in a city renowned for its Moorish influences, a home of old timber architecture, and a history of shipping, sailing, surfing, and spas.

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Barkow Leibinger has unveiled details of their competition-winning proposal for the Waterfront Hotel and Boarding House in Molenkopf, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Located at a prominent site on the city’s Molenspitze, the west-facing triangular point of land sits at the end of an industrial peninsula used for warehouses and container shipping at Frankfurt’s East Bay.

The Barkow Leibinger scheme manifests as a triangular pinwheel with offset corners defined by the depths of hotel rooms. The mass of the 60-meter-tall building is further broken down by a “folded accordion façade” to maximize the panoramic views of the European Central Bank, and Frankfurt skyline attainable from the site.

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Woods Bagot has won an international competition for the design of Sydney’s first luxury hotel in 20 years. The hotel and office tower at 4-6 Bligh Street in central Sydney will be flanked by a mixture of commercial and hotel buildings, shops, restaurants, and cafes.

The unanimous choice of a six-person jury, the Woods Bagot scheme was praised for “a masterful architectural clarity and precision throughout the scheme,” forming an elegant and coherent anchor at the heart of the city.

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Milan-based architecture and design firm Peter Pichler Architecture has proposed a new sustainable tree-house concept, offering a unique maximized connection with nature.

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The world’s first quarry hotel has been opened in China, designed by Martin Jochman and his studio JADE + QA. Situated in an 88-meter-deep, water-filled, disused quarry, the 337-guestroom Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland Hotel contains only two levels above ground, with 16 more levels plunging into the quarry below.

The winner of an international design competition in 2006, Jochman developed the scheme in collaboration with ATKINS, in a process which has lasted over a decade. The resulting “groundscraper” features such amenities as an underwater restaurant and aquarium, all set within a form which seeks to minimize its impact on the local environment.

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After years of construction, the world's first underwater hotel has officially opened in the Maldives. The hotel, part of the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, will allow guests to relax within the waters of the Indian Ocean and is touted by the developers as "an ambitious display of architecture, design, and technology."

Hotels, both real and fictional, have hosted some of TV and film’s most popular screenings through the years, from classics such as Pretty Woman to modern phenomena like Bates Hotel. While a weekend trip to fictional locations such as the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Fawlty Towers are beyond our reach, there are in fact many iconic hotel rooms from films that you can book right now.

To demonstrate this, Expedia recently commissioned a series of detailed floor plans of hotels from famous plots. From the Majestic Yosemite Hotel featured in The Shining (which is seemingly spatially possible after all) to The Ceasars Palace Las Vegas suits from the Hangover (Ceasar didn’t actually live there) we have republished the floor plans below for your inspection.