I don’t know when I first became fascinated with hotels, but I do remember a movie I was watching as a kid on TV in the early 1980s. It was Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘To Catch a Thief’ and it made quite an impression on me. Everything seemed to exude luxury and elegance: the landscape, the places, the story and its characters, and then there it was above all – a location, a hotel, the iconic Carlton-Hotel in Cannes!

From that day, the world’s grand hotels got me hooked. Even though these sanctuaries of luxury intrigue more than one because of the many stories and histories involving their often illustrious and sometimes notorious guests, I am interested in hotels through the eyes of an architect.

How does a particular hotel function as a building type? What is the layout the architect had in mind for the hotel’s demanding guests in their temporary residence? Are there any signature locales (think the Tonga Room of San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel) creating extraordinary destinations not only for guests but for visitors alike?

This investigation is the result of a passion and it will be a pleasure to share a little bit of my enthusiasm for those fascinating places that have created a truly unique sense of place.
In their respective locations, they have traveled through time and still function the way they were intended: a home away from home for the discerning traveler. Some of the names will ring in the ears of even the unfamiliar, and some will be rather unexpected vestiges of the days when a particular hotel was the place to stay in style.