MEETING…THIERRY DESPONT


THIS PAGE (TOP): The sitting room of the Junior Suite boasts a large sofa, club chairs, coffee table and a second flatscreen television. In-room finishes include fine suede covered walls, leather wrapped double closets, desk and night stands. A private bar includes bespoke cocktail set, menus and custom Chatwal playing cards


Deco aesthetic, Despont rightly points


out that the hotel should not be pinpointed to a particular style. “America has been influenced by Art Deco but really this is a French tradition; when you look at the Chrysler, this is a building inspired by car design,” he comments. “So I looked to the glorious Machine Age in America [1918-41] and industrial designers of the time who could turn their hands to anything.” Twentieth- century heavyweights such as Raymond Loewy, Walter Dorwin Teague, Gilbert Rohde and Norman Bel Geddes, all of whom were influential in New York, come up in the ensuing discussion, with Donald Deskey given a special mention for his furniture designs and interiors of Radio City Music Hall. A generous use of gleaming metal and glass is evident throughout the hotel’s public spaces, from the entrance hall to The Lambs Club Restaurant on ground floor and Lambs Club Bar located on the second-floor lounge. Constructed from backlit, mirror-finished, polished stainless steel, the reception desk, concierge desk and lobby bar are reminiscent of the radiator grilles of classic American cars while beautiful backlit glass columns – inspired by a ship’s mast – punctuate the lobby’s birchwood panelling, which is finished with aluminium accent strips and ebonised wood trims. Banquettes in the lobby, upholstered in café-coloured Trevira, and in the restaurant, where punchy red leather is the choice of material, feature integral frosted- glass ‘headlamps’ and built-in stainless steel torchieres. Empire State lamps are playfully suspended over the Lambs Club Bar, a stainless steel beam-like structure framed


044 NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2010 WWW.SLEEPERMAGAZINE.COM


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