Hotel Marcel was originally designed to house the HQ of the Armstrong Rubber Company (one of America’s premier tyre production companies) – and now, the modernist architecture building has opened as a carbon-neutral design hospitality hub with much flair. Completed in 1970 by the renowned Bauhaus designer and architect Marcel Breuer, this beauty of a building was just primed and ready for this reinvention.
Welcome to Hotel Marcel
As you drive through the coastal city of New Haven on US Interstate 95, the concrete behemoth appears as if floating due to its distinctive form, which is broken vertically into two parts. It's also the reason why the building serves so perfectly as an on-point demonstration of Breuer's approach to separation of function: a two-storey void partitioning the base of the building from the office block above. Listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places, the 'Pirelli Building', as it soon became known, has survived several plans to demolish it – first to build a mall, then to replace it with a parking lot. Nevertheless, it persisted.
Designed by Brooklyn-based branding and interiors firm Dutch East Design, in collaboration with developers, architects and owners Kraemer and Bruce Redman Becker of Becker + Becker, Hotel Marcel is an amalgamation of Breuer’s brutalism with a hospitality-focused interior. Art plays a key role too. A range of female Bauhaus-era artists – such as Anni Albers, Gunta Stölzl, and Benita Koch-Otte – dot its halls.
'I was grateful to have a like-minded counterpart on the ownership side. Kraemer Becker, who is a fine artist in her own right, understood how the delicacy of our approach was essential in creating delightful guest experiences, beyond the building’s persona and sustainability measures,' said Larah Moravek, partner at Dutch East Design.
'While iconic, the building is somewhat intimidating. I was inspired to offer warmth and approachability – to leave a mark that exhibits a gestural and dynamic quality, speaking to Bauhaus sensibilities and executed with an honesty in materiality. The design was an interplay of delight forged between Bauhaus and brutalism,' says Moravek.
The notable building is now also the country’s first net-zero-energy hotel, having received a LEED Platinum certification and pursuing Passive House status too. It features 165 guest rooms and suites; a fossil fuel-free operation of a full-service new American restaurant and bar; a lounge; and 7,000 sq ft meeting and event space with a penthouse courtyard and galleries.
On top of its lavish amenities and design, the hotel is also all-electric, impressively generating 100 per cent of its own electricity and energy for heat and hot water with a rooftop solar array and solar parking canopies. Notable indeed, as it can now also serve as a model of environmental sustainability for the entire modern hospitality industry.
-
What is the future for design in Africa? Designer Hicham Lahlou shares possibilities for the continent at largeThe Moroccan designer celebrates 30 years of his practice. Here he speaks from his studio in Rabat about his own career and the creative possibilities for design in Morocco and the rest of Africa
-
Philadelphia’s 'Grande Dame' reopens with a dazzling French twistThe Bellevue Hotel has been restored to its former glory through a stylish renovation by design studio Ward + Gray
-
Louis Vuitton’s duo of Osaka exhibitions celebrate the house’s deep-rooted relationship with JapanUnfolding in Osaka this summer, ‘Visionary Journeys’ is a transporting trip into the house’s history, while ‘Yayoi Kusama – Infinity’ promises an immersion into the works of the Japanese artist, who is a longstanding Louis Vuitton collaborator
-
A 432 Park Avenue apartment is an art-filled family home among the cloudsAt 432 Park Avenue, inside and outside compete for starring roles; welcome to a skyscraping, art-filled apartment in Midtown Manhattan
-
Discover this sleek-but-warm sanctuary in the heart of the Wyoming wildsThis glorious wood-and-stone residence never misses a chance to show off the stirring landscape it calls home
-
Inside a Montana house, putting the American West's landscape at its heartA holiday house in the Montana mountains, designed by Walker Warner Architects and Gachot Studios, scales new heights to create a fresh perspective on communing with the natural landscape
-
Peel back this Michigan lakeside house’s cool slate exterior to reveal a warm wooden homeIn Detroit, Michigan, this lakeside house, a Y-shaped home by Disbrow Iannuzzi Architects, creates a soft balance between darkness and light through its minimalist materiality
-
Inside the new theatre at Jacob’s Pillow and its ‘magic box’, part of a pioneering complex designed for danceJacob’s Pillow welcomes the reborn Doris Duke Theatre by Mecanoo, a new space that has just opened in the beloved Berkshires cultural hub for the summer season
-
A Rancho Mirage home is in tune with its location and its architect-owners’ passionsArchitect Steven Harris and his collaborator and husband, designer Lucien Rees Roberts, have built a home in Rancho Mirage, surrounded by some of America’s most iconic midcentury modern works; they invited us on a tour
-
Inside Frank Lloyd Wright’s Laurent House – a project built with accessibility at its heartThe dwelling, which you can visit in Illinois, is a classic example of Wright’s Usonian architecture, and was also built for a client with a disability long before accessibility was widely considered
-
A guide to modernism’s most influential architectsFrom Bauhaus and brutalism to California and midcentury, these are the architects who shaped modernist architecture in the 20th century
