talks about the history and recent MVRDV makeover of Amsterdam's Lloyd Hotel , a showcase for Dutch design, an international art scene, and the world's first “Cultural Embassy”. | Internim |
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LLOYD HOTEL, AMSTERDAM
By STEVE KORVER
Special to The Globe and Mail
Saturday, January 22, 2005 - Page T6
Lloyd Hotel, in Amsterdam's eastern docklands, began life as an immigrant's hotel for Eastern Europeans off to become South Americans. A darker karmic aura engulfed the building during the Second World War and Nazi occupation, when the Germans rezoned Lloyds as a jail to "house" members of the resistance. Later, it served as a youth prison and then as a living/working space for artists, the latter of which did much to lighten the mood. Still it remained rather dodgy -- until now.
The space has been reinvented as a happening hotel, harbouring a late-night bar and eatery, as well as the world's first "Cultural Embassy."
While aspiring to be a hub for both the local and international art scenes and a showcase for Dutch design, Hotel Lloyd can't be simply classified as a boutique hotel or design hotel. Certainly none of its 120 rooms, running from one to five stars, can be accused of being box-like.
Design
The fact that MVRDV is allegedly Brad Pitt's favourite architectural bureau should not be held against it.
The firm cannily visualized modern Dutch architecture -- where borders between private, public and commercial space are blurred -- with its transparent "Dutch Big Mac" pavilion at the Hanover World Expo 2000, featuring a forest on the third floor, and cafés and dunes on the first. This summer MVRDV are likely to eclipse this achievement when it builds a mountain pavilion over London's Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park.
But for Lloyds, MVRDV merely blasted a hole through the centre of the building to let in much needed light while retaining much of the buildings original elements: stained-glass windows, tiled walls, exposed timbers and poured concrete floors. The four jutting central balconies housing the Cultural Embassy -- already packed with donated art books and chunky furnishings dating from the era when the hotel was originally built -- seemingly float above the lounge/restaurant.
Ambiance
Flexibility and informality defines the Lloyd philosophy, but at this early stage this can often be interpreted as being overly pretentious about being unpretentious. But this need not bother anyone. As Suzanne Oxenaar, one of the project organizers observed: "It was never the idea to make a hip hotel. We were only interested in creating space and freedom -- to create a space where people can do what they want. Only then did we think that it should be a hotel."
This freedom has been expressed with a minimalism that allows guests to decorate their own walls and/or to drag in any required extra furnishings from the halls. A kitchen can even be arranged so that guests can be hosts to their own guests.
Rooms
Hotshot Dutch designers -- Hella Jongerius, Christoph Seyferth, Bureau Lakenvelder, Richard Hutten, Marcel Wanders and Atelier van Lieshout -- have created a true party pack of rooms: from almost Japanese-like pod dwellings to full-blown rooms with polyester spiral staircases swooping up to sleeping lofts. All rooms tend to be fun, funky yet functional. Curiously, the rooms are best described by their bathrooms: some are shared, some fold-away, some have glowing translucent walls, some only exist as an open shower in the middle of a narrow room, and others are wholly customized from polyester resin.
Food and drink
Reviews are mixed as Lloyd sorts out -- as the Dutch call it -- "the child sicknesses" of its two restaurants. But the forecast is promising as the woman responsible has been involved with some of the city's finest eateries, including the reinvented water-pumping station Café-Restaurant Amsterdam.
Snel (meaning "Fast") is open from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. and aspires to offer everything from French fries -- for which the praise is already universal -- to caviar. However, a groggy pre-breakfast brain may find it difficult to construct a meal from the lengthy menu made up of separate simple dishes and ingredients.
The Lloyd's other restaurant, the dinner-only Sloom (Slow), tests these boundaries yet further by having no menu at all; its kitchen aspires to rise to every challenge. So far, the service of neither could be described as fast. Happily, there's always the reasonably priced late night bar and 24-hour room service to seek solace in.
Clientele
Hotel Lloyd is nothing if not inclusive. While the owners strive to seduce the "eternal immigrants" of the global arts scene, they hope to welcome everyone. Already, they speak proudly of how they helped a Shanghai gallery owner power-weekend her way through the local arts scene; how a convention of mystery writers ended up reading ghost stories to each other; and how a unique bonding occurred after a random public encounter between a group of African lawyers and a group of local art students. You are, however, equally likely to spot a happy family from Calgary.
Things to do
The Cultural Embassy offers a personalized local lowdown on what's going on in town and can also arrange tickets. The neighbourhood is a veritable theme park of modern Dutch residential architecture, from the red swoopy bridges connecting the Sporenburg and Borneo peninsulas, to Scheepstimmermanstraat, where each townhouse's façade is wackier than the next.
Oostelijk Handelskade, the waterside strip that connects Lloyd to Central Station in minutes, has been "up-and-coming" for almost a decade now. But this summer's Sail2005, Europe's largest nautical gathering, and this winter's opening of the concert hall Muziekgebouw, should see it finally "arrive."
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