Design To bring this “one-of-a-kind luxury hotel” to life,
Twomey steeped himself in the cultural and visual world of 1920s glamour and decadence. He cites the golden age of travel and the high glamour of old Hollywood as key influences behind the era’s visual pull. On the other side of the coin came mass poverty and a generation struggling to overcome the horrors of First World War. “There’s absolute glamour and decadence, and
romance and grittiness. From a design point of view, all architects and designers shamelessly bask in the glory that is the 20s,” Twomey says. “Aesthetically, it’s informed a multitude of art forms, architectural interiors… the jewellery, the object art, the watercolours, the clothes, the fashion... there’s no end to what they tirelessly played with, and what it’s still about today.” For Twomey, good design is about rich and
precise storytelling. The Beaumont’s creation in 2014 while collaborating with Richmond International, he says, even had a central Gatsby- type character in mind with the brief outlining ‘his’ detailed ten-page backstory. An enigmatic figure ‘Jimmy Beaumont’ left America for London fed up with prohibition-era restrictions. The Beaumont is his brainchild, an institution made in the image of the New York hotels he left behind. While this narrative might sound distinctly
Fitzgeraldian, Twomey waves away any claims that he or his partner in crime for this latest renovation, renowned interior designer Thierry Despont, simply mimicked or rehashed old clichés. “Pastiche design is easy. There’s a place for it, but
Above: Le Magritte Bar in The Beaumont Hotel, belonging to the tradition of American bars, which thrived in Paris and London in the 1920s.
Opening page: An aerial view of Whitehall’s Old War Offi ce, soon to be Raffl es’ fl agship hotel.
125 50
The number of rooms in The OWO after a fi ve- year transformation, along with 85 branded residences to the public. Luxury Travel Adviser
eras to stand out from generic brands, grand old hotels in major European capitals fit nicely with the style and demands of the luxury segment. Either way, there is no denying that an established cohort of architects and designers are becoming well versed in the art of nostalgic design. “Architects and designers use nostalgia to appeal to an audience on a ‘feel-good’ level by tapping into people’s desire to feel a sense of belonging, meaning, and security,” says James Twomey, company director of ReardonSmith architects and one of the key figures behind The Beaumont. “Their creations are endowed with emotion and sentimentality that connects with their audience and elicits a pleasurable feeling because of the comfort of the familiar beauty of the period.” Part of the original project team enlisted to breathe
new life into the hotel in 2014, Twomey has been hard at work on a renovation of the property, which has seen the installation of the new Le Magritte Bar. Meanwhile, the old bar has undergone a complete transformation to create Gatsby’s Room, and vibrant murals have been added to the ‘Colony Grill’ room.
you couldn’t possibly blindly copy,” Twomey says. “It’s got to be emotive, it comes back to storytelling. We’re all storytellers innately. In the 1920s, when it comes to hotels there’s no competition. It’s a narrative that makes people feel all sorts of things. We buy into an experience because it’s theatre.”
Suitable for the silver screen Whether it’s The Beekman in New York, with its mix of antique style and stunning pyramidal forms, or The Adlon in Berlin with its marble columns and grand ballrooms, there is something enticing about occupying a space that feels as if it has weathered the currents of history. In fact, director Wes Anderson was so enamoured with the fading glamour of fin-de-siècle hotels of central Europe that he created his own. Set in a fictional middle-European country called Zubrowka, Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (GBH) is loosely based on the opulent Grand Hotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary, and the Art Nouveau Gellert Hotel in Budapest. Just like those gilded hotels of old, the GBH is filled with swirling staircases, pastel colours, velvet and marble.
Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
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