Interview Tim Andreas
Image:The Sanderson, London
a few months. There was a real camaraderie and a sense of effort instilled in the whole team. After that I was hooked. I stayed in touch with them and in 1998 went to work with Ian Schrager Hotels (the predecessor to Morgans Hotel Group) in 1998. While there Ian had me do some smaller projects in the hotels, a renovation of Morgans Bar, a design for the penthouse at Mondrian, and then the design of an apartment in Richard Meier’s Perry Street condo tower in Greenwich Village. Having spent a few years realising other people’s designs, which in and of itself was very rewarding as it teaches you to really think critically and internalize a design idea, I wanted to get back into design and left to start Banjo in 2004.
WHAT DOES THE MORGANS HOTEL GROUP REPRESENT IN TERMS OF DESIGN? I think they were and always will be the original boutique brand. The industry has tried to create a category of ‘design hotel’, but I think Morgans defies that definition. The hotels have unique persona. Having been a part of the creation of some of the early hotels and witnessing the creative energy that goes into concepting and designing every element, it’s something that can’t be reduced to a ‘brand standard’. You have to live it, and Morgans does that.
WHAT DO THE SANDERSON AND ST MARTINS LANE REPRESENT AS HOTELS IN LONDON? From what I understand, they really broke the mold and launched a decade of a more modern approach to the London hotel experience. In that sense they were a beginning and an end. The beginning of a
trend, but the end of Ian Schrager Hotels having a lock on the modern boutique hotel market.
WHAT WAS THE BRIEF FOR THE DESIGNS? As with any of the renovations we’ve done of the original Philippe Starck designs, Morgans wanted to maintain the essence of the brand. It has to be new, yet familiar. The returning guest should feel they are coming home to something they love, but reimagined for the next generation. It’s not an easy task, having to create an impact that people recognise (or why spend the money at all?) but also immediately embrace. With Sanderson and St Martins Lane they emphasised, comfort, warmth, and luxury. Outside of my design scope (other than having to conceal all the wires) they updated the in-room technology as well.
WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST CONSIDERATIONS FOR EACH OF THE SPACES? The first thing for each hotel was to look with a critical eye to discern what we thought was the room’s essence, albeit over a decade after launch. It’s kind of like we are collaborating with the design itself. It’s not so much about the original concept as it is ‘what does it still mean today (or in this case 2012)’? While there are similarities in the designs, there are obvious differences and that is part of what we honed in on. I saw Sanderson as a real distillation of what a luxury hotel could be. From a decorative standpoint, Starck’s designs tend to boil down the decoration to its most conceptual essence. In this case a few carefully designed decorative items in a minimalist
box. Even the desk and bed were combined into a single element, floating in the room. In my mind, Sanderson reduced the decorative English luxury hotel tradition to a silver leafed, Regency era sleigh bed and carved swan chairs. He eliminated the damask and chintz, pared down the decoration, and left us with the essence. He even exploded the bathroom with glass walls. So our charge was to how to impart more luxury, warmth, and comfort into that experience. At St Martins Lane, the room was really about the experience. Of all the Morgans hotels I have always loved SML. It’s purely effortless. The decoration is the view. Whether it’s of a modest red brick and white-paned windowed façade, or the rotating globe on top of the Coliseum, you have a floor-to-ceiling window on London. You are centre stage. You could even change the whole mood of the room with the coloured light wheel. So the challenge at SML was to maintain a modern/minimalist decorative approach but also make it a new and fresh experience. We quickly focused on an etched dichroic glass product that we could introduce that would play off the colour changing light effect (which has also been intensified). While you could previously change the colour and mood of the whole room, the dichroic glass shifts in colour as you move through the room and with the changes in light throughout the day. It has a real life of its own. We also developed a warmer palette for the draperies and carpet, focusing on a natural approach that would feel textural, as opposed too decorative. In the lobby of the hotel, the antique furniture elements add a note of ‘luxury’. We toyed
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