The hotel was the first SAS hotel when it was built. Rezidor SAS is now a major operator, and refurbishing this flagship hotel was always going to be a difficult challenge given the high profile of the original designer. The iconic status the hotel has within the internationally respected Danish design community, together with a need to interpret the new SAS house style, meant the designers were always on a ‘hiding to nothing’ in carrying out this refurbishment. That they have to a large extent succeeded in carrying it off is a tribute to their creative ability. The Reception and Lobby areas pictured below are programmed to be redeveloped this year (2004) and it will be interesting to see the finished results, but remaining true to Jacobsens vision in the public areas should be rather easier than with the bedrooms.

The original brief was obviously revolutionary in its day, and the solution was also apparently controversial. Following Arne Jacobsen to refurbish the hotel was always going to be a challenge, and the designers have rightly paid homage to the original throughout whilst enhancing the status of the Royal as Copenhagen’s leading hotel.

A bolder brief, and a willingness to have one hotel that stood apart from the group identity, even a little, might have paid higher dividends for the operator and given a contemporary interpretation of a ‘jet age’ hotel. Whether a startling new design could have arisen that still paid homage to the past is difficult to say, but the challenge would have been a worthwhile one.

Given similar opportunities other designers have not presented solutions with the longevity of Jacobsens as the panoramic of Heathrow shows. A new interpretation of ‘jet age’ style , or the contemporary equivalent, is needed - current airport design and 'jet age' design falls short of earlier solutions. There is something to be said for keeping Scandinavian design of the 1960’s alive. We continually learn lessons from history, and as Room 606 demonstrates not all that is new is better than the old.