A step beyond - the new breed of iconic hotels and holiday lets


Once the icons of hospitality were ancient palaces and mansions festooned with expensive fabrics and fixtures, redolent of past glories. Meet the new breed of iconic hotels and holiday lets – ultra-modern expressions of light and materiality, rich in their sense of place. Veronica Simpson celebrates heritage tourism, 21st-century style.


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There was a time - a very recent time - when mainstream culture could barely stomach modern architecture and design. Only five years ago, the then RIBA president Sunand Prasad gave a series of lectures on BBC Radio 3 mulling over why there was so much public antipathy to contemporary architecture. Only two years ago, Alain de Botton - on the crest of launching a starkly modern range of iconic holiday homes through his Living Architecture enterprise - bemoaned in The Telegraph that 'Britain remains a country deeply in love with the old and terrified of the new'.

Perhaps he was exaggerating, but what a difference two years makes: in the past 12 months, widespread celebration greeted English Heritage's unashamedly contemporary new visitor centre at that most ancient of sites, Stonehenge; redevelopment masterplans for London's Southbank Centre were jettisoned as a groundswell of opinion rose to protect the brutalist masterpieces - skateparks and all; genuine vintage and mid-century-inspired furniture has trickled through from the design festivals to the major department stores; and glass and steel extensions have become to the current decade what faux Victorian, PVC-windowed conservatories were once to the aspirational householder of the Seventies.

Fogo Island Inn, Newfoundland, Canada

From Hoseasons to English Heritage, the need to appeal to the prevailing tastes for more streamlined, modern style has had an impact (if you don't believe me, go check Hoseasons' Woodside Beach Lodges, new for 2014). But just as the mainstream always catches up with the avant garde, so the avant garde needs to keep pushing those boundaries and finding ways to excite and entice the most sophisticated and stylish of thrill-seekers.

The latest trend is to go beyond the usual versions of luxury, rejecting the ornate 18th-century palaces with their thick velvets, wall-to-wall marble and opulent chandeliers in favour of far-flung areas of genuine wilderness and natural beauty, where the traveller can find hotels reinvented as elegant and utterly contemporary sculptural masterpieces, resonating strongly with the spirit and aesthetic of their location, complete with hot tubs and locally sourced rag rugs.

Hotel Tierra Patagonia, Chile

Take, for example, the poetic austerity of the Fogo Island Inn, situated on the remote Newfoundland coast. Once upon a time, a nature-loving charity looking to provide accommodation for those seeking the sanctuary and calm of a historic fishing port and wildlife-speckled island would have erected a few well-insulated wooden huts and filled them with wood fires and quilts. What the Shorefast Foundation of Canada has done is take those wood-burning fires and quilts and liberally disperse them in a beautifully crafted but simple buildings whose design is intended to act as 'an exclamation mark' in the landscape, according to architect Todd Saunders of Bergen-based Saunders Architects.

When Saunders embarked on this project, in 2006, he says he and the client 'wanted to show a new way of doing architecture'. At the time, that part of Canada had 'a lot of good new music and new literature and the food movement was good, but there hadn't been anything good in architecture for 50 years,' he says. 'We wanted to show a new type of architecture using the old ways they used to build in. They built really softly on the landscape because it's a hard rock and it's more of an arctic climate.' The traditional elements in the design (see case study) included siting the buildings on stilts, to spare them the worst excesses of stormy winter seas. The structures are deceptively simple, almost like extended shipping containers, using steel frames clad both inside and out in wood. Thus, says Saunders, 'The landscape pops out in its own way and the building gets its own character.'

The Long House, Norfolk

At the time when the first plans were being drawn up, there was nothing like this out there. Says Saunders: 'In the past 10 years some really good hotels have been designed but before that there was always this thing where you'd wake up in a hotel and it would take several minutes to realise which city you were in. We wanted you to know as soon as you woke up you were on Fogo Island. All the beds are directed towards the ocean. There are just single-loaded corridors; all the rooms are placed looking towards the ocean.'

This experience - lauded by upmarket travel blog Mr&Mrs Smith and given Best Newcomer award in 2013 - starts at more than £500 per night, but it's is nothing compared to the cost of staying at the newly launched Iniala Beach House, Phuket. This 10-suite residence comprises three villas and a penthouse, with an international cast of designers and architects including Brazil's Campana Brothers, Spain's A-Cero, Ireland's Joseph Walsh, UK designers Mark Brazier- Jones and Graham Lamb and Thailand's Eggarat Wongcharit. Billed as 'a shrine to some of the best creative minds, architects, designers and chefs in the world', villas and suites cost from £12,000 a week, £47,000 to hire the whole shebang.

Astley Castle, Warwickshire

The aesthetic is far from the restrained minimalist-meetsfolk poetry of Fogo Island - more maximalist indulgence writ large. If I had that kind of spare change I'd be tempted to check out the holiday houses (as in second homes, not holiday rentals) in Spain that developer Christian Bourdais has commissioned on a 50ha nature reserve two hours south of Barcelona. Called Solo Houses, Bourdais claims they will 'revolutionise the world of architecture in general'. Big talk indeed, but expectations are high with Sou Fujimoto promising a house that is 'like a geometric forest', and other uncompromising specimens scheduled by Barcelona's Pezo Von Ellrichshausen, Office KGDVS (a 'house that almost disappears'), Didier Faustino, Studio Mumbai, MOS and TNA Takei Nabeshima. Price on application, needless to say.

For those with an appetite for something a lot edgier than a crofter's cottage but with incomes more in line with the crofter's there is consolation, first, in the form of Alain de Botton's Living Architecture project. Heaven knows how de Botton managed to secure the plots he's bought in some of the quieter but still picturesque rural spots of the UK, (never mind securing planning permission) but he has rapidly commissioned and constructed a series of uncompromisingly modern buildings from the leading architects of the day.

As bold as Bourdais, his aim was to revolutionise the holiday letting market, along with people's attitudes to contemporary architecture. In the aforementioned Telegraph article, he argued that living and sleeping in a contemporary masterpiece does far more to convince you of the joys and benefits of modernism than visiting a contemporary gallery, airport or museum. He stated: 'When people declare that they hate modern buildings they are on the whole speaking not from experience of homes, but a distaste of post-war tower blocks or bland air-conditioned offices.'

Rhine Valley Hotel, Urbar, Germany

None of the five Living Architecture houses built so far is conventional, even within the contemporary idiom. Dutch architecture practice MVRDV and Mole Architects created a 'balancing barn' in Suffolk - a building that is cantilevered out precariously over a lakeside slope. Covered in reflective steel tiles, the barn's appearance captures shifting light and seasonal patterns. Full-height sliding windows in all rooms, roof lights and a glass floor in the cantilevered section immerse the visitor in nature. Then there's Michael and Patricia Hopkins' charming Long House in Norfolk - their first UK domestic project in more than 30 years. Still in the pipeline is Grayson Perry's 'gingerbread house' folly (a collaboration with FAT) in Wrabness, Essex, due to complete this autumn, with 2015 seeing the realisation of both John Pawson's hermit-like house in Wales and Peter Zumthor's secular retreat in Devon.

The Long House, Norfolk

But it's not just about giving established architecture practices a dream commission. Young and lesser-known practices have been offered a share: Scotland's NORD Architects created the Shingle House, Dungeness, tarred in black shingle outside and concrete and timber in. The houses are pretty much booked out a year in advance. David Kohn's Room For London, a boat constructed on the roof of the Hayward Gallery, has been such a massive hit that it has been retained well beyond its original remit of a year (in 2012).

And then there's the smorgasbord of contemporary delights promised by The Modern House, an estate agency set up by director Matt Gibberd 10 years ago to promote contemporary architecture to home-buyers, and now with a lucrative arm in holidays lets of stunning modern houses - usually the second homes of practicing architects, from mid-20th-century masterpieces in Florida to ultra-modern barn conversions in rural France, Mexican beach huts and a modern houseboat on a lake in Berlin.

Astley Castle, Warwickshire

Gibberd agrees there has been a seismic shift in demand recently: 'The appreciation and awareness of modernist architecture has increased immeasurably since we founded The Modern House. This is partly due to education, and people becoming more aware of it via visual media. But it must also have something to do with historical context. It's only when we have enough perspective on an era or a style of building that we can see its inherent qualities, and it's now, some 85 years since the modern movement first took hold'

Though its core business will always be estate agency, says Gibberd, 'Our portfolio of holiday properties is growing all the time, and the number of enquiries is increasing as well. Some people have made it their mission to sample as many of the properties on our website as they can - they tend to own modern houses themselves, and they gear their holidays around interesting places to stay.'

Gibberd reckons it is the vast range of places, now visible and bookable online that has shifted people's approach to their holiday destination. He says: 'Using high-quality photographs, it's possible to convey the essence of a place and get people excited about it... that's what you want from a holiday.'

Hotel Tierra Patagonia, Chile

This degree of choice and access is also having a dramatic impact on the budget end, through house-sharing websites such as AirBnb, launched five years ago, to offer a 'contemporary home from home' for travellers. Innovation consultancy Jump Associates' director, Jacqueline Rhoades, wrote in her blog recently that the sharing economy has taken a huge chunk out of the hotel business. 'Within five years,' she says, '[Airbnb] was able to build a marketplace of 600,000 properties in 192 countries.' According to Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk, 150,000 people spend the night in an Airbnb property every night - that's 'a capacity equal to, if not bigger than, Hilton,' says Rhoades. What we are witnessing is a 'secular shift from ownership to access' she says. People clearly want to stay in spaces they themselves dream of living in.

Ultimately, what is it that guests are responding so positively to in these spaces? According to architect Sarah Featherstone, whose Welsh riverside holiday home Ty Hedfan is listed among The Modern House's holiday offerings: 'We frame the views. Before you even get to the river we frame it for you and make a picture out of a certain vista. In that sense you don't even need to leave the house.' From the cantilevered lounge with its big windows over the river and the surrounding greenery, 'you get this amazing sense of being in the trees'. Through the entrance, staircase, kitchen, dining and decking areas, there is a seamless connection to the surroundings - a sense of truly inhabiting its lush and tranquil location.

Hotel Tierra Patagonia, Chile

All of the projects shown here demonstrate that quality of modernity and authenticity. And more should follow, as Todd Saunders' growing client books testify. Since Fogo Island, he's been asked to design a spa in a forest outside of Oslo, a hotel on the Falkland Islands, another in Crete, and even a grand dame of the traditional luxury hotels came calling, he says: 'The Four Seasons hotel want me to work with them now.'

But there are further benefits to the slow proliferation of the authentically modern within our recreational landscapes: it is beginning to change planning authorities' perspectives on what is and isn't appropriate - which is most welcome of all in the UK's risk-averse planning fiefdoms. Says Featherstone: 'Ty Hedfan has been used as an exemplar in the Gower book of design principles. They are citing it as being an exemplar of what could be considered appropriate in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.'

Changing minds through great design is one laudable achievement. Changing policy is even better.

Fogo Island Inn, Newfoundland, Canada
Canada's Shorefast Foundation wanted to create a cultural and leisure attraction that would celebrate the resilience and craft of those who have made a living in the past four centuries off of the harsh northeast coast of Newfoundland. Fogo island, one of the oldest settlements, is now home to a 29-room hotel, with art gallery, dining room, bar and lounge (recently rated by enroute magazine as one of Canada's top 10 new restaurants), a heritage library and cinema, run in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada.

Like a collision of shipping containers, the highly insulated wood-clad steel structure sprawls out across the rocks, supported by tall Corten steel stilts to minimise impact on the local flora and fauna and spares the structure the ravages of winter storms. The X-shape of the inn was dictated by the ideal placement for specific areas, says architect Todd Saunders: 'The restaurant looks to the west (for sunsets) and the gallery to the east. Rooms look out to the ocean so they don't get direct sunlight right away.' Room sizes vary between 350 sq m to 1,100 sq m. having only designed domestic spaces before he landed this commission, Saunders envisioned the hotel 'like a home with 29 bedrooms and a larger kitchen...you get the feeling you're in this ancestral house, with more modern forms and spaces'.

Fogo Island Inn, Newfoundland, Canada

The islanders traditionally whitewash their interior walls, so that was done here, with local designers and builders involved wherever possible - from traditionally crafted quilts and rugs to the furniture, much of which was commissioned from established international designers and then made by local boat-builders. Due to its remote location, materials were restricted to 'everything you can buy in the local hardware store and to the same detailing that's been used for 100 years,' says Saunders.

The inn is triple-glazed, with rainwater collected from the roof redistributed in two basements and filtered for toilet and laundry water, and also deployed as a heat sink for kitchen appliances. Solar thermal panels supply hot water to the in-floor radiant heating as well as laundry and kitchens. With off-site parking and tough sound insulation between rooms, the only noise guests should hear in their ocean-facing rooms is the waves.

Client: Shorefast Foundation
Architects: Saunders Architecture, Norway
Area: 4,500 sq m (gross)
Cost (estimate): £21.8m
Completed: June 2013

Hotel Tierra Patagonia, Chile
Lago Sarmiento provides one of the most spectacular vistas in the Torres del Paine National Park in the XII Region of Chile.

Chilean architect Cazu Zegers has created a spectacular hotel from which guests can enjoy the many moods of the dramatic landscape, seeking to create a form that 'merges with the metaphysical landscape', rather than interrupts it. The elongated shape is inspired by the idea of a fossil, 'a prehistoric animal beached on the shore of the lake', says Zegers.

Hotel Tierra Patagonia, Chile

The structure is reinforced concrete, with laminated pine beams and native lenga boarding along the exterior, giving the building a silvery sheen typical of the region's humbler, weatherbeaten wooden houses. Ceilings and interior walls are also lined with lenga, with lenga, both raw and brushed, used for furniture.

The spatial solution aims for warmth and intimacy, with a variety of dwelling spaces (pool, lounge, hot tubs, dining area, bar) linked by internal pathways. It has won multiple awards since opening, including Wallpaper Design Awards' Best New Hotel, 2013.

Client: Katari SA
Architect: Cazu Zegers, Santiago de Chile
Associated Architects: Rodrigo Ferrer, Roberto Benavente, Grupo Aira, Estudio AI
Interiors: Carolina del Piano, Alexandra Edwards
Area: Site - 70ha; building 4,900 sq m
Cost: £1.28m
Completed: 2011
Lighting Design: Paulina Sir, Gaspar Arenas
Landscape Design: Catalina Phillips, Gerardo Ariztia

 

The Long House, Norfolk
Though Hopkins architects may have won Stirling nominations and completed countless offices, cultural, healthcare and education buildings and Olympic velodromes, Alain de Botton's living architecture scheme was the first UK client to commission a house in more than 30 years.

The resulting long house marries the trademark Hopkins aesthetic of industrial utility with craftsmanship and a local architectural vernacular. The flint walls echo nearby Norfolk churches and barns, using locally sourced stone from a quarry at holt. They continue on from the main body of the house to form a morning yard and an evening yard at either end, for sheltered al fresco dining and breakfasting.

The Long House, Norfolk

A pitched roof, formed by timber trusses tied with steel cables, hovers over the open-plan interior, with a double-height entrance gallery divided by a two-way stove into a lounge at one end and kitchen/dining area at the other.

A spiral staircase leads to four bedrooms and bathrooms. A minstrel's gallery aids circulation on the upper floor and connection with the heart of the house. a fifth bedroom is off an annexe next to the morning yard.

The coastal landscape unfolds from large first-floor windows, where Michael and Patty Hopkins have designed bespoke primary-hued bedroom furniture, contrasting with sleek ash flooring and walls, juxtaposed with textured lime-rendered walls. Two main garden areas include a plum and apple orchard to the front, with rear gardens planted with a wild meadow mix.

Client: Living Architecture
Architecture and Interiors: Michael and Patty Hopkins
Completed: January 2013
Structural Engineer: Jane Wernick Associates

 

Astley Castle, Warwickshire
Setting an unashamedly modern house within a ruined 12th-century castle took vision and courage, both on the part of the landmark Trust, custodian of the site, and architects at Witherford Watson Mann. This 21st-century addition to a 900-year-old building, joining the many amendments and alterations of previous owners - including one incarnation as a stately home hotel before fire destroyed most of it in the seventies - won 2013's Stirling Prize, with the judges praising its inspired balance of 'creativity, preservation and conservation'.

Astley Castle, Warwickshire

Beautifully detailed and crafted, the house is filled with a warmth and materiality that complements and enhances the surrounding picturesque decay, with exposed brickwork and wooden ceiling beams, wood floors, simple tiles and an eclectic collection of largely wood fixtures and furniture.

'All of the brick is built on medieval wall footings. everything bears directly and is built out of the masonry, which is why it's binding the masonry together,' says WWM's Stephen Witherford.

Client: Landmark Trust
Architecture and Interiors: Witherford Watson Mann
Cost: £1.35m (via HLF Funding)
Completed: 2012
Structural Engineer: Price & Myers

 

Rhine Valley Hotel, Urbar, Germany
Approached by an investment company that saw an opportunity for a new hotel in the World heritage site of the middle Rhine valley, Herrmanns Architects responded with the idea of reproducing iconographically a building that represents the region's topography. Says henner herrmanns: 'The river meanders through the valley, which owes its special curved appearance to the natural formation of the river landscape.'

The building itself will be partially buried in the landscape, with 120 bedrooms enjoying panoramic views on to the river. Landscaping sets up a rhythmic counterpart to the river's gentle curves. elegant finishes and natural materials, sourced locally, will create a calming and sophisticated backdrop to the tranquil setting.

Rhine Valley Hotel, Urbar, Germany

Says Herrmanns: 'The landscape of the middle Rhine Valley has an extraordinary cultural richness that is well worth preserving. On the other hand, we can´t live only in medieval castles. Our project was to combine modern comfort and modern infrastructure with a romantic spell.' A large spa with sauna and indoor and outdoor pools are included in the design, as is a shopping area.

With investors now happy that all criteria have been met, Herrmanns sees 'A high chance of realisation' of the project, in 2015/16.








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