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Lighting is also the key to the public areas – although the designer’s bold use of colour throughout the hotel is more marked here, with great slabs of hot red providing a strong visual background in areas of the ground floor. The lighting is used playfully enabling colours to be changed so that areas take on a different sort of identity at different times of day. Whilst some of the planning is not as strong (the restaurant/bar line can be visually a little like a corridor to the outside door), the overall effect is strong, particularly in the Reception areas. The black surround to the reception and concierge desks with the strong red background sets a stage for the staff, giving a sense of place to their area of work.
The lighting is sometimes laid into ceilings sometimes into the floor to act as a directional line visually. With the ability to change the colour of the lights moods can be changed in different areas, and areas themselves can be defined through colour. This is particularly successful in defining the breakout areas outside the business rooms, and used most theatrically to change the mood in the bar and the bar seating areas.
In corridors the lighting is again used strongly and combined effectively with the signage for the rooms. The carpeting is used to enhance the sense of position for doorways and stairs, but all corridors are visually kept quite short, and the lighting is discrete without being dim.
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The hotel has linked with the local art scene for much of the artwork with mixed success - pieces such as the large painting behind reception are strong and work well, whilst other pieces are spoilt by poor framing or are simply not up to the general standard.
Overall,though, I feel that in the public areas the designer is less sure of themselves – more theatrical for effect rather than with the same strong functional underpinning that makes the bedrooms and bathrooms so successful. However it is in these public areas that the junction between existing and new building is most evident, and the spaces are inherently more difficult to define that the bedrooms or suites.
The identity the designer has created has given the operator an hotel that is distinguished from its competition in Vienna. With a plethora of five stars to choose from in this beautiful city the calm, comfort and sense of pampering that these rooms generate should enable the hotel to compete very effectively for business and leisure travellers.
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