Dutch Design: Marcel Wanders' Andaz Amsterdam Hotel

The rockstar of Dutch design Marcel Wanders created a spectacular Alice in Wonderland interior for a new hotel he opened this year in his home town of Amsterdam, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento

MARCEL Wanders cuts a tall, dashing figure with his leonine mane of hair and black suit. The classicism of a white shirt and well-tailored dark suit is subverted by the odd, flared cut of his trousers, checkered white shoes and a colourful necklace of birthstones, Baccarat glass beads and pieces of meteorite and lava. When I first interviewed Wanders in Milan, he was sartorially famous for his signature necklace of large pearls that he somehow managed to make look both masculine and stylish on his six-foot, four-inch frame.

The Andaz Amsterdam Prinsegracht - Prince’s canal - was a public library and it’s 1970s exterior is not prepossessing. But inside Wanders has created an Alice in Wonderland (or rather Wanderland) world of enormous bell-like ceiling lamps, modern baroque chairs by Martin Baas, Delft-blue carpets woven with the Dutch East India Company’s world maps and corridors lined with artists’ video installations. 

A true eccentric, Wanders has always followed his own vision since his early days with the avant-garde Droog Design when he designed his infamous Knotted Chair in 1996. Wanders has kept throwing decorative bricks through the window of International Modernism and it's adherents' celebration of spare, colourless minimalism. For his company Moooi and for the world's top design houses, he has designed baroque wall-papers and washstands, embossed cutlery, out-sized pieces of classical furniture made from paper, giant lamps with flowers lining their interiors and tables and chairs covered in silky roses.

Here in Amsterdam at the Andaz Hotel, Wanders’ riotous aesthetic has been let loose yet the imaginative ebullience of the design gives the public spaces a sense of surreal cohesion. Blue and white porcelain tiles reflecting early Dutch Delft pottery line the soaring atrium beyond the hotel's entrance and an installation of delicate, hanging golden spheres suggest the country’s history of navigation and exploration.

“The building’s heritage as a former public library also informs the design of the hotel with books - both physical and deconstructed - forming the look and feel,’’ says Wanders. “The imagery of historic books about Amsterdam served as inspiration for the wallpaper and décor and offer an authentic local experience to visitors.”

Wanders' furniture is used throughout the hotel including the tall, bright-red Tulip chairs that cluster like large flowers in the lobby. The oversized bell-like lamps lined in gold with crystal chandeliers inside loom above glossy white, classic tables. Wanders also chose the mixture of books and objects that clutter surfaces to create a club-like atmosphere that feels more like a home than a hotel.

The designer created the hotel’s restaurant called Blue, where he now often dines, with a mixture of ornately carved wooden panels and a simple, celestial blue ceiling dotted with beaming spotlights. Outside in the courtyard, the Alice in Wonderland theme is taken quite literally with a wall covered in black and white tiles depicting a giant, modern Alice, a rabbit and a bottle with Drink Me written on it.

The hotel’s 122 rooms are characterised by a dreamlike mixture of white-linen covered beds topped by trompe l’oeil wallpapers depicting half of a large glimmering fish melded with a utensil like a spoon or comb. “A major theme within the overall design is the idea of ‘connected polarities’, two individual non-related elements that are stitched together to form a new logical whole,” explains Wanders. “The Amsterdam city logo is three xxx and if you look at them as embroidery stitches you can fit things together and connect them.

“On the wall of each hotel room is a giant photographic mural which takes take two unsuspecting items in this case a fish head and an object and stitches them together to create a new, surprising whole - a connected polarity. Thus fish and spoon, fish and brush, fish and vase sit harmoniously on the walls demonstrating our mission to embrace the polarities within the city and to keeping an open mind.”

Every design element in the hotel has a twist that evokes Wanders’ particular aesthetic. The bedroom's tall rectangular dressing table mirrors appear straightforward yet the addition of a neon frame adds a frisson of gas-station rawness. The winged chair by the bed could be straight from an English country house, yet the preposterously high back and phosphorescent yellow upholstery add a Daliesque strangeness.

Located in the cultural heart of Amsterdam, the hotel is a walk away from the Stedelijk, the city's modern art museum and the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh museum that reopen early next year.  Wanders would like the Andaz to become a creative meeting place and second home for both locals and travellers interested in art and design.

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Portrait of designer Marcel Wanders by Annie Leibovitz

The hotel's foyer designed by Marcel Wanders with his over-sized Bell lamps,Tulip chairs and carpet woven in Delft Blue of the Dutch East India Company's maps.  

A soaring atrium rises above the foyer and is lined with Delft tiles. An installation of golden spheres represents the Dutch history of navigation.

The Bells were originally designed in 2007. They hang above tables part of the Container Table New Antiques series of 2012. 

Reflecting it's former history as a public library, the entrance to the hotel is lined in tiles depicting scenes from early books about Amsterdam

The giant photographic mural of a fish with a porcelain handle that represents Wander's theory of 'connected polarities'.

The hotel's sitting room with it's blackened Martin Baas Smoked chairs, Wanders' sofas and another Delft Blue map carpet.

One of the bedrooms with a mirror in a neon frame and Wanders' version of the Wing chair.

Wanders high-backed, bright yellow version of the classic chair.

Another photographic image of a large fish combined with one of Wanders' decorative spoons and Amsterdam's symbol of three crosses. 

Big Shadow lamps first designed by Marcel Wanders for Cappellini in 1998.

V.I.P Chair first designed in 2000 for the World Expo in Hanover. 

Designing 007: New Exhibition Opens at Melbourne Museum

Sean Connery leans agains the famous Aston Martin DB5 while filming in the Italian Alps for the Bond film Goldfinger.

James Bond’s design and style is exhibited at the spectacular show Designing 007 which first opened at London's Barbican and has now moved to the Melbourne Museum, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento

THE exhibition looks at the inside story of one of the most influential series of films in terms of style, examining works from 1962's Dr No to 2012’s Skyfall. Exploring the design and fashion of key James Bond films, the curators of the show had access to the producers film archives. Their aim was to make the show a multi-sensory experience with lots of audio-visual displays that immerse audiences in the creation and development of the films' ethos.

The show is the result of collaboration between the Barbican Centre in London and the Bond production company, EON Productions. It is guest-curated by fashion historian Bronwyn Cosgrave and the Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming. The design of the exhibition is by Ab Rogers who along with the curators had unprecedented access to EON’s production archive.

“Having looked at the contents of the extensive EON archives we wanted to thrill visitors with an insight into some of the design processes involved in the many different ways of making the Bond films,” explains Lindy Hemming, whose own work sits alongside Bond’s bespoke tailors Anthony Sinclair, Douglas Hayward and Tom Ford.

"'Bond, James Bond', from the moment Sean Connery uttered that famous name at the beginning of Dr. No, Agent 007 captured the world’s imagination," say the show's curators. "In the five decades since, the suave screen hero has not only headlined the most successful franchise in film history, he has made an indelible impact on the worlds of art, music, fashion, technology, travel, automotive design and lifestyle. Designing 007 aims to show a world of innovation, action and style with a close-up view of the world’s favourite secret agent."

The skill and technology behind the films is shown in great detail: from the tailoring and costumes to the set and production design. The exhibition includes Bond's famous Aston Martin as well as 007's gadgets and special effects. Highlights of the show are the artwork and designs for sets and storyboards by the masterful production designer Sir Ken Adam plus the dramatic costume designs by Bumble Dawson and the work of fashion designers from Giorgio Armani and Tom Ford to Hubert de Givenchy and Rifat Ozbek.

Also on display are Roger Moore’s white tuxedo from Octopussy and the spacesuit from Moonraker, Scaramanga’s golden gun from The Man With The Golden Gun, Jaws’ fearsome teeth which first appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me, gadgets from Q Branch including the attaché case given to Bond in From Russia With Love and the 1964 silver Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger which famously returned to the screen in Skyfall.

From Sean Connery to Daniel Craig, props such as guns like the Walther PPK, IDs and passports have been essential items as 007 travelled the globe in pursuit of bad guys and the Bond girls. Other highlights in the show include the Chesterfield coat and hat Connery wears in Dr. No for his first meeting with his boss M and Roger Moore's yellow ski suit and red backpack from The Spy Who Loved Me, arguably the greatest pre-credits Bond sequence ever made.

Bond's tuxedo, along with some typically glamorous dresses are used to good effect in the exhibition including a scene from the poker sequences where the film makers had Bond create his signature Martini.  

The exhibition runs until February 23 2014. Visit the Melbourne Museum website for more information: http://designing007melbourne.com/

On set Sean Connery talks to Ian Fleming who wrote all of the James Bond novels based on his experience as an undercover MI6 agent.

James Bond's suave signature suits were hand made in London's Savile Row for Sean Connery.

The most stylish and menacing of the James Bond characters, Sean Connery lights up at the gaming table in Dr No.

One of the famous scenes recreated in the Designing 007 exhibition showing the girl covered in gold paint from Goldfinger.

The exhibition is designed as a "multi-sensory" experience and shows the films along with some of the films key costumes.  

The show exhibits James Bond's Walter PPK gun and his varied ID documents.

Some of the most dramatic scenes from the films are shown as story board images created by the great Sir Ken Adam.

Another storyboard image inside Fort Knox for the film Goldfinger showing the skill and imagination of the designers.

The Austin Martin DB5 is displayed in all of it's understated glory at the exhibition.

10 Question Column: French Conceptual Artist Alexis Rero

French artist Alexis Rero at Wunderkammern Gallery in front of a new work before the opening of his show.

French conceptual artist Alexis Rero new exhibition Supervised Independence has just opened at Wunderkammern Gallery in Rome. He talks to Jeanne-Marie Cilento about his work and life in our 10 Question Column and is photographed just before the opening of his show by Andreas Romagnoli

SUPERVISED Independence is Rero’s first show in Italy and the title is an oxymoron the artist uses to examine society with a series of rhetorical sentences. Alexis Rero made his mark as a street artist creating ironic, dystopian phrases on walls in abandoned spaces and erecting wooden letters in beautiful open fields in the French countryside as three-dimensional sculptures. His signature is a line crossing through words suggesting both a question mark and a negation of meaning.

He replaced traditional stylised graffiti letters with clear, bold letters that enhance the provocative one-liners designed to play with stereotypes and the phrases that infiltrate our lives from the internet. Some of the works in his new show are like abstract expressionistic paintings recalling the weathered, distressed walls he worked on as a street artist. Others are experiments with new materials and different forms of wordy installation.

The young artist did not start out life as a street kid but completed a Masters degree in Social Economy and Business Management at the Université Paris 2 and then studied graphic design at the London College of Communication. Rero has had exhibitions in Europe and the USA and is becoming well known for his pieces in both public, urban spaces and natural environments. Most of his work does revolve around language, either as single words or phrases designed to engage the viewer in their particular context. 

While he was in Rome, Rero created public works in different locations around the city, including a wall at the Roma Tre University with NUFactory and a collaboration with the French Institute of Saint-Louis where he left a permanent installation at Largo Toniolo 22.

1. What have you been working on?
I have been finishing work creating oxymorons for my exhibition in Rome. Indeed, if contradictions are not much appreciated at school, they are important issues of our time: Fair Trade, Positive Decay, Creative Destruction, Sustainable Development, Silent Metropolis etcetera...

2. What inspires you for your creative work now?
I like walking, traveling... moving as much as I can in the city, in the countryside, in abandoned places ... I feed myself especially by travelling and meeting with people. I use art as an excuse to go to meet people and to discover new ways of approaching the world.

3. How did you choose Street Art and installations as your creative metier?
As a teenager, for me graffiti represented a first contact with art and creative expression in general. When I was older, I felt increasingly cramped by graffiti with its codes and techniques, and I wanted to keep this initial energy, and change the medium to give myself new opportunities. So I naturally turned to outdoor installations with different media.

4. Can you describe the experience, person or training that has had the greatest impact on your artistic career?
When I met Tania Mouraud! She taught me a lot and she contributes greatly to my development in both human and artistic aspects. I admire her approach, her career and her radicalism.

5. What do you find the most challenging aspect of your work?
The choice of media and its context. As a matter of fact, my intervention is intended to be as "poor" as possible without a context. When this latter is placed in relationship with my intervention my proposal attempts to make sense. Things are created thanks to this interaction. Alone, they are nothing.

6. Where do you like to draw or create your initial ideas for your artwork?
Moving! I always have a sketch-book with me! It is even more important than my external hard disk. This is my future memory while my external drive saves my past history. It records all the lines and directions that I will explore in the future.

7. Do you have a set schedule of working creatively everyday or is the process more fluid?
I work on project and/or residence. I do not have a particular schedule of work as a painter.

8. What part of Street Art and/or creating installations gives you the most happiness and which other artists inspire you?
I love the activity of interacting with an environment. I like the work of Mark Jenkins, Baptist Debombourg, OX, Borris Tellegen and so on...

9. Is there a town or place in the world you find inspiring?
No city, no country in particular ... Each place gives me new energy and helps me to understand new directions.

10. In our digital age what do installations give us as an art form and how do you define contemporary art?
Installations are able to immerse the viewer into the world of the artist and they provide a warmer and more sensual relationship than digital media enables. Installations question the ephemeral and the boundaries between the real and the virtual, and these are important aspects in my work. But I use digital tools to build my installations.

Supervised Independence is open at the Wunderkammern Gallery until January 25th 2014 at Via Gabrio Serbelloni 124 in Rome. For more information visit: www.wunderkammern.net

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

The artist stands beneath one of his installations at Wunderkammern gallery in Rome.

Rero in front of one of his new works "Digital Dark Age" at his latest exhibition.

Untitled (Nothing to see here) Mixed media on canvas. Diptych 2013. 200 x 120cm

Untitled ( Obsolescenza programmata) From the series E-Book. ook under resin, adhesive letters, framed. 2013 52.5 x 52.5cm

Untitled (Damnatio Memoriae) From the series Condemnation of Memory. Neon Light 2013.  20 x 330cm

A distressed niche at Wunderkammern filled with Rero's wooden letters

Most of Rero's work revolves around language, either as single words or phrases designed to engage the viewer in their particular context. 

Untitled (Meglio appassionato di belle ragazze che di gay). From the series "Positive Discrimination." Pasta, adhesive letters and frame. 2013 41.5 x 51.5cm

Rero in front of his installation at Wunderkammern: Untitled (I panni sporchi si lavano in casa). Mixed media (frames, canvas, wood, nails).  2013

Untitled (Perdita di memoria). Mixed media on canvas. Diptych 2013. 200 x 120cm 

Untitled (Digital dark Age) form the series "contemporary Roman Ruins". Mixed media on wood. 2013 106 x 126.5 cm 

Untitled (I panni sporchi si lavano in casa). Mixed media (frames, canvas, wood, nails).  2013 

Alexis Rero working on creating one of his outdoor installations in France: "Google Street View". 

Rero's completed though-provoking installation in a green field

Created in an abandoned building, Rero's work on a colourful, dessicated wall.

"Not Found" resonates as an ironic phrase in a derelict church.

Rero plays with slogans and phrases we are constantly subject to on the internet. 

"It wasn't me" ~ another of Rero's interventions in an abandoned space that captures the street artist's danger of being caught by city authorities.

In a contemporary world where everything and nothing can be considered art, Rero writes a well-placed rhetorical comment: "Is this Art?'

DAM Architecture Highlights 2013: The Scope House in Japan

Poised on a hill looking over tea plantations in Southern Japan, Scope is a sculptural new building designed by mA-style architects, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Kai Nakamura

DESIGNED as a giant viewfinder, the building has a jutting rectilinear snout that takes in the green swathes of the surrounding tea bushes. The house is compact ~ barely one hundred square metres ~ but has the strong presence of an abstract Henry Moore statue and the charisma of Le Corbusier’s small chapel at Ronchamp. The telescopic second level has a single glazed wall, like a lense, focusing all attention out to the brilliant emerald plants producing green tea that cover the Makinohara Plateau below.

Atsushi and Mayuma Kawamoto of mA-style architects wanted to create a contemporary new building in this small town in Shizuoka Prefecture. Sited high on a stone platform, Scope is resoundingly Modernist but has a certain grace of scale and lightness that prevents it dominating the landscape dotted with modest houses.

“We felt it was necessary for the client, who has lived in this area a long time, to design a building which could recapture the charm of the land afresh,’’ Atsushi Kawamoto explains. “The site consists of a tiered stone wall in a landslide prevention zone which is why we couldn't use the whole site for construction. We created the "telescope" form on the second level as a trapezoid because the view to the north is beautiful and the room spreads out in that direction."

Supported on two slanting volumes of exposed concrete, the second level’s horizontal viewfinder is rendered in a contrasting crisp white. "This large opening on the north side projects out into the landscape and catches the changes of the season and daily weather, bringing in light and a feeling of the wind," say the architects.

Entry to the house is through a covered courtyard created by the concrete walls. Inside, the light-filled entrance is bare apart from an elegant white spiral stair leading up to the main floor. The ground level houses a Japanese room and bathrooms that flank either side of the entry.

The curving stairway leads up to the top floor with several bedrooms and the spacious open plan living and dining room with its single expansive view across the tea plantations. Here, the interior has been kept to minimalist essentials with concrete floors, white walls and a pale, stream-lined kitchen.

“The internal space is simply organised so it is in harmony with the scenery outside,” Kawamoto says. “We can really create a rich experience by tying human beings and nature together through architecture.”

The slim and elegant spiral stair leading up from the entrance to the top level.

 The "lense" of the telescopic second level that has glazed walls and doors opening on to a balcony that forms the rim of the viewfinder.

The stream-lined kitchen with a far-reaching outlook across the tea plantations of Southern Japan.

The brilliant green tea bushes covering the Makinohara Plateau in the Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan.

The minimalist living and dining room divided by a sleek kitchen all in white.

The main bathroom with its deep Japanese tub, long basin with mirrored cupboards above and stony, concrete walls.

The house sits like a sculptural monument on a tiered stone wall above the modest local houses.

Slanted walls of raw concrete support the white-rendered, telescopic second level.

A courtyard of slim trees and gravel is created between the two concrete volumes of the ground floor that support the full-width of the top level above.

Scope lit up at twilight creating a welcoming courtyard entrance into the house.