Design Hotels - Future Forum

15-17 October - Berlin

'Human Design'

Fifteen years ago, hotelier Nicholas Rettie attended the very first gathering of Design Hotels™ members, in Miami. Here he reports back from the latest forum, held in Berlin

My association with Design Hotels goes back to their beginnings when I was General Manager of The Halkin, one of the first design-led boutique hotels in London.

London in 1992 was in the depths of a brutal recession. Hotels had seen occupancy fall off the edge of a cliff. And in those days, the height of design chic was the ‘English Country House’ look spawned by dozens of Sharrow Bay lookalikes with acres of chintz fabrics, piles of scatter cushions, and brochures that tempted visitors with promises of a ‘home away from home’ that greeted you ‘from the moment you arrive’. Few people could see beyond these trite clichés. Christina and B. S. Ong developed The Halkin – at an eye-watering cost – with Italian architects and interior designers Lorenzo Carmellini and Rocco Magnoli of Laboratorio Associati, now known as Spatium. Their uncompromising attitude, lack of hotel experience (but wealth of retail experience – do you remember those Versace stores?) produced a radical drop-dead design chic that confounded all the critics. Not only were there no scatter cushions, but where was the wall paper? What do you mean, incausto plaster?

It was against the critics’ hostile reaction and dire market conditions that we worked to bring this new concept of hotel to success. There was an absolute lack of clutter, an understated elegance and an obsession with integrity, quality and presentation that was driven by Mrs. Ong’s extraordinary sense of grace and simplicity.

So when Claus Sendlinger appeared out of the blue one evening at the Halkin, I was delighted. Here was someone who not only immediately understood what we were seeking to achieve but who also wanted to create a marketing consortium of like-minded hotels, regardless of price point. Along with hotels like Pflaum’s Posthaus in Beyreuth, The Claris in Barcelona, Le Buci Latin in Paris, The Greenview, South Beach Miami, and The Eden Hotel in Arosa, Design Hotels eventually launched itself in 1993, much to the disdain of the existing hotel representation and marketing organisations. Our first meeting of the ten member hotels took place in that haven of Art Deco, South Beach, Miami and we were all driven by a fierce determination to bring this new style into more widespread use.   

Fifteen years after that groundbreaking forum in Miami in 1994, Claus Sendlinger and his team greeted the 240 delegates to the Future Forum in Berlin. We met initially for a reception at the Fernsehturm – the bubble at the top of the tower that overlooks Berlin, built in 1969 to demonstrate what was bafflingly described as ‘The Socialist vertical dominance (sic) of the DDR’. 207 metres above street level, the restaurant rotates to provide diners with a 360 degree view of the city. What is remarkable is that the restaurant remains locked in a time warp of the 1960’s, both the interior designs and especially the food. We were greeted by the most wonderfully old-fashioned spread of retro food on a ‘kaltes buffet’ the like of which I haven’t seen since I was a trainee.

The theme of the Future Forum was ‘Human Design’, and was kicked off by Chris Sanderson and Martin Raymond, founders of the Future Laboratory. With a dazzling presentation at breakneck speed they introduced us to the concepts of ‘womenomics’, ‘bleisure’, ‘design directions’ and ‘food spaces’. Their gift is to lift our eyes to the horizon and to view trends and developments from a different perspective.
They referred to Germaine Greer’s apt comment that it is no longer about equality between men and women, but about the differences.

They identified the irrelevancy of separating business from leisure: that it was necessary for us to recognise that some customers were seeking a ‘high velocity’ passage through our space, which we should facilitate through reducing the scope for friction in their dealings with us. On the other hand other customers (or the same customers but on another occasion) want to enjoy plenty of contact and connection with our staff throughout.
Next came Marije Vogelzang, one of a new generation of ‘food designers’. She is not a cook, nor does she aspire to emulate the scientific ‘molecular gastronomy’ approach to food embraced by Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck or Ferran Adria at El Bulli. Rather she sees herself as a philosopher who studies the effect food has on us, although not in a dietary sense. She is fascinated by the colour, texture and matching of different foods, and the effects they have on us, both mentally and physically. 

Vogelzang related to us a moving example of the deep emotional reactions of some of the older residents of Rotterdam, who had been through the awful deprivations in the final stages of the Second World War, when she recreated and served to them some examples of the type of food they had had to eat at the time. She did, however approach the whole subject with a delightful (and refreshing) lack of reverence and with lots of humour, particularly by recalling the unselfconscious delights children express towards food – and the effects some foods have on our digestive systems! It was a very stimulating and thoughtful presentation, encouraging us to think differently about food.

In the afternoon Stephen Burks, one of a new generation of industrial designers brought to us the story of his work with a project called ‘Aid to Artisans’. This is a scheme in which he has created a virtuous triangle between design (himself and his studio), the artisan (in the example a gifted but penurious South African), and the distribution network to work in a not-for-profit discipline. The results were some remarkable handmade pieces of furniture that were highly sought-after items, creating a real benefit for the artisan and those who manufactured the pieces that might otherwise have never enjoyed such success.

That evening we gathered for an experience described as ‘We art what we eat’ laid on by ‘The Foodists’. As we waited (and waited, and waited...) I reflected on the apoplectic reaction such a statement would have elicited from my former boss at London’s Great Eastern Hotel, Sir Terence Conran. As the evening progressed I was all the more relieved that he was not there as I think the event as it unravelled may have led to what’s sometimes described as a ‘loss of sense of humour situation’. Ah well, how boring things would be if everything was an unbridled success...

The following day’s sessions were dedicated to usability workshops in which selected members described ways in which they are delivering the concept of Design Hotels. These talks are an extremely valuable part of the Forum as they move away from the conceptual towards the practical, and for a number of members of Design Hotels who are responsible for small, and perhaps isolated properties, this gives them a platform from which they can gather a lot of vicarious experience to take back and experiment with themselves. Firstly, Tomas Tanzer described the impact his music programme has on his hotel, Luxe 11 in Berlin, and then Marc Skvorc of Klaus K in Helsinki presented with Ari Arjola, co-founder of Eat&Joy to demonstrate their food concepts.
Finally came Jos Stuyfzand, the Creative Director, Ambient Experience Design of Philips, with some extraordinary ideas. This was high-tech stuff with breathtaking applications in lighting, music and television being used to deliver art images.

The Future Forum is an ideas OD. Away from the daily routine, and amongst your fellow practitioners, you are in an environment and with a mindset to gather up valuable knowledge and ideas. You may not like all of them, but you will have had your mind alerted to new ways of thinking about your hotel and its offering. Claus is very smart at bringing these presentations to his members, and for many of us it would be impossible to reap the benefit like this in any other way. After all, it is much more fun than eating a prawn canapé with a travel agent in Orange County.

 www.designhotels.com/futureforum