ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN FOR THE HOTEL OF THE PRESENT WHICH IS ALREADY FUTURE The hospitality for the third millennium examines the strategies of its own image: this could be the subtitle of a meeting which has recently taken place in Montecatini Terme. The contributions of the architects and designers who have taken part in it, although they were coming from different stylistic researches, have proposed original ways of considering hotel, welcoming, hospitality and comfort. Generally, the need to assert the dignity of the single and independent hotel have been highlighted against the spreading chains, that is the result of the market tendency to standardisation which makes the top place conceived for hospitality a sad container with no personality. On this topic Marco Casamonti has been talking for a good while, highlighting with a nice vein of argument a general situation which he considers negative because of the decreasing planning in this field in Italy, in comparison with what happens in the USA. Here, although among many kitsch projects, today we can find interesting ideas. The hotel should be conceived as a charming, remarkable and amazing place which can arouse emotions, like it was in the Liberty period when the sector became popular. Nowadays in the research of the "astonishing" the hotel architecture does not show attitudes typical of this era; on the other hand it rather imitates models of the past, with a strong anachronism and loss of identity. Aldo Cibic has dealt both with the planning of independent hotels and with chains for refreshment, like the Autogrills by Benetton. His professional approach is devoted mainly to the research of the detail, of the single thing which goes from the work on colours to the choice of lights, of decorations, and of furnishings, trying to create soft and sophisticated atmospheres. The objective problem is that Italy has to learn how to do business, also looking at the teaching which in this field comes from abroad, especially from North America, where it's easier to find intelligent and open-minded business men who are also ready to start new ways. Bonan - whose saying is "to live in hotel like at home and at home like in hotel" - has mainly concentrated on two of his projects in Florence: Hotel Lungarno and Hotel Gallery of Art. Both have a strong thematic and artistic characterisation and their carrying out has been possible thanks to a customer like Ferragamo group. Both the hotels, although with different styles and ways of furnishing, are characterised by a plus-value represented by collections of works of art: in a case they have been borrowed from a pre-existing heritage, while in the other they have been chosen just for this purpose. In a city like Florence, which is the favourite destination of the artistic tours in the whole world, making collections of works of contemporary art the characteristic element of a high level reception structure can be seen as nothing particular, but actually this represents a special case in the international scene where this kind of thematic researches are more common. Simone Micheli, who has made the hotel field the favourite of his professional activity, confirms the priority of emotion, of dream, even though carried out in an extreme way. This is a research based on the scenic effect, on the visual sense, on the emotional involvement: the hotel is considered as the place where you can live an extraordinary experience, completely different from the household atmosphere. Finally Denis Santachiara has shown a visual, contemporary and philosophic approach. His attention is devoted to the design object, which becomes an element for the characterisation of the space. The topic of art inside the hotel is dear and familiar to him, like the experience of Art Hotel testifies: this is a hotel chain dedicated to art, a sort of art gallery open to the city, an international meeting and cultural exchange point.

Montecatini Terme Palazzo dei Congressi 12 / 02 / 2000 Text by: Barbara Giannessi I. II. III. IV. V. In cooperation with: M.Angeles Fernández Alvarez TOP