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A Place in Retrospect

Hotel Hotel was a project by Molonglo from November 2013 to March 2018. As time went by people built on its bones with their complicated layers and added to the  plurality of this place; which in the end, was the whole point.

Hotel Hotel was a hotel in Canberra, Australia. We thought it up; and then we thought up innumerable iterations of that first thought, working with many people; artists, makers, designers and fantasists.

It was a messy, collaborative and cross-disciplinary design process. Slow, iterative and layered. It was a move away from a linear approach to design. A move away from the cookie cutter. An experimental soup of evolutionary biology that helped us learn from each other and try new ways.

Original Sun room at Hotel Hotel in Canberra.

Original Sun room number 231 shot by Ross Honeysett.

Daily Rituals shot in Creative Sun room number 105.

Creative Sun room number 105 shot by Ross Honeysett.

Creative Sun room number 119 shot by Ross Honeysett.

Creative Sun room number 207 shot by Ross Honeysett.

Original Sun room number 241 shot by Ross Honeysett.

The internal atrium shot by Will Neill.

Original Atrium room number 226 shot by Ross Honeysett.

Meandering Atrium room number 102 shot by Ross Honeysett.

Creative Atrium room number 128 shot by Ross Honeysett.

Meandering Atrium room number 128 shot by Ross Honeysett.

Meandering Atrium room number 117 shot by Ross Honeysett.

Meandering Atrium bathroom number 102 shot by Ross Honeysett.

The rooms were a response to our dry bush capital, Canberra; a re-imagination of the textures and layers of an Australian shack and landscape. We channeled these textures through raw materials – reclaimed oak, earthen clay, concrete, cork, linen, brass, grass wallpaper, woollen carpets. We custom designed many of the pieces there: the lights, stools, chairs, tables and beds. Local craftspeople fabricated them, drawing on skills that, over the years, have become precious.

These rooms were conceived of as temporary homes; grainy envelopes to occupy as your own.

Half of the rooms looked out of their opening hardwood windows onto the lake or bush and half looked into the internal atrium populated with tree ferns salvaged from Tasmanian forests destined for clearance. On top of the rooms, high up in the pineapple shaped Nishi building, sat the apartments. While our rooms were a cacophony of textures, the apartments acted as white space waiting to be filled. Each one with views of either the hills or the lake.

One bedroom apartment number 716 shot by Scottie Cameron.

Three bedroom apartment number 1506 shot by Scottie Cameron.

Two bedroom apartment number 1002 shot by Scottie Cameron.

View of the Shine Dome designed by Roy Grounds from apartment 403 shot by Will Neill.

View from apartment 401 shot by Scottie Cameron.

View from Pad apartment number 1415 shot by Scottie Cameron.

Three bedroom apartment number 1509 shot by Scottie Cameron.

The Shabbab in three bedroom apartment number 1509 shot by Lee Grant.

Three bedroom apartment number 1509 shot by Scottie Cameron.

The furniture collection in the rooms, apartments and public spaces were an important part of our narrative: salvaged and restored 20th century furniture mainly made in Australia (and the occasional piece from New Zealand, Italy, France and Brazil). These pieces are familiar and feed our nostalgia. They come with a history, having  soaked up stories from their makers, their owners and the postwar homes they once occupied.  

Our furniture collection grew to become an active catalogue of pieces made by little known designers such Paul Kafka, George Kóródy and Gerstl. It is (to our knowledge) the largest public collection of this type of furniture in Australia. Some of the stories of these little known interior designers and furniture makers are included in ‘The Other Moderns’: a 300-page book edited by Rebecca Hawcroft that we co-produced.

Repose Chair, 1953. Designed by George Kóródy for Artes Studios. Rubber cushion in original Belgian linen. Photographed at Hotel Hotel in Canberra, 2017 for 'The Other Moderns' edited by Rebecca Hawcroft.

George Kóródy’s distinctive scissor leg dining chairs, c.1955. Photographed at Hotel Hotel in Canberra, 2017 for 'The Other Moderns' edited by Rebecca Hawcroft.

Telephone or typing chair, 1953. Designed by George Kóródy for Artes Studios. Kóródy’s simple and refined design was produced in solid coachwood with upholstered leather or fabric seat. Photographed at Hotel Hotel in Canberra, 2017 for 'The Other Moderns' edited by Rebecca Hawcroft.

Upholstered armchair, angled coffee table and curved couch, of unknown provenance and now part of the Hotel Hotel Salon furniture. Photographed at Hotel Hotel in Canberra, 2017 for 'The Other Moderns' edited by Rebecca Hawcroft.

The salon at Monster kitchen and bar shot by Ross Honeysett.

The salon at Monster kitchen and bar shot by Ross Honeysett.

The dining room at Monster kitchen and bar shot by Ross Honeysett.

The dining room at Monster kitchen and bar shot by Ross Honeysett.

The salon and dining rooms at Monster kitchen and bar shot by Ross Honeysett.

The dining room at Monster kitchen and bar shot by Ross Honeysett.

These furniture pieces are central to the Monster kitchen and bar, the restaurant come through fare on the ground floor, where we made the Salon and Dining rooms. The spaces were an ode to postwar immigrants coming to Australia from the 1940s to 1980s in search of a better life… And the eclectic-kitsch tastes they brought with them. It was an important chapter on how immigration increases the textures, layers and dimensions of a place’s cultural fabric.

 

Like any domestic space, Hotel Hotel continued to unfold and change long after it was built. (Image of Honey Fingers at 'Swarm Trap' exhibition shot by Charlie White.)

Old friends and new friends added to this place by way of creative projects. (Image of 'Perfect Imperfect' exhibition opening shot by Will Neill. )

Like any domestic space, Hotel Hotel continued to unfold and change long after it was built. Old friends and new friends added to this place by way of creative projects – exhibitions, talks, workshops and performances. These layers added to the plurality of the place; which in the end, was the whole point.

Hotel Hotel was also shaped by the lived experiences of the guests that stayed there and the many beautiful people that work(ed) there; that loved it and treated it as though it was their own home.

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