Missing the point!

In another edition of his “Rei­se­fieber” (Travel Nerves) column, Wolfgang Bachmann reveals why not every random trend in the hotel industry is crowned with success and what really helps guests.

It’s amazing the places you can sleep in these days: in the middle of the jungle with squawking para­keets, in a Formula 1 racing car, in a sailor’s cottage, in a girl’s bedroom, on the set of a musical, in an Ayur­vedic medi­tation room, in a brothel. You don’t need to go on any exotic, long-distance trips to get there, you just have to find a themed hotel, of which there are plenty – at least in Germany.

This trend is undoub­tedly a form of revenge aimed squarely at jour­na­lists who have com­plained for years that on business trips they are always booked into anonymous, cha­rac­terless hotels – and which conform to inter­na­tio­nally stan­dar­dized codes and all look the same. “Where am I again?” my col­le­agues would think as they woke up beneath sweaty syn­thetic blankets, the morning after a lengthy, boozy press con­fe­rence. “In Ober­hausen, Saar­brücken or Del­men­horst?” Some­thing really did need to be done about this.

The hote­liers rea­lised that the minibar, the hair­dryer and the breakfast buffet simply didn’t cut it anymore; they had to offer their guests some serious added value. In par­ti­cular, the over­worked company repre­sen­ta­tives, or in common terms, sales reps – who spend nights on end in hotel beds – had to be offered a unique accom­mo­dation “expe­rience”. Interior desi­gners were thus tasked with the challenge of bringing tog­ether con­ven­tional amen­ities, German building stan­dards, and fic­tional back­drops. Guests were not to feel unduly con­fused or unsettled, however; it had to be intui­tively clear that the old “safe” is the mini-bar, the antlers behind the door double as coat hooks, and the nau­tical bucket with deco­rative rope handles can be used as a waste paper basket.

Of course, some­times you do feel a little silly when you’re caught off guard by a flam­boy­antly themed room. As if you’ve been thrust on stage in a play without having learnt your lines. Or someone has invited you to join in the German Kar­neval parade, when they know per­fectly well that you hate dressing up. At least you can enjoy some measure of Scha­den­freude that the other guests look just as silly as you do, as they sit there in their crumpled suits, on carpet stacks or freight crates with gasoline barrels for tables, and – whether vol­un­t­arily or not – play along in this immersive per­for­mance of “Breakfast in a Harbour Warehouse”. And yet, all the while, there is one satis­fying, trans­ferable, end­lessly ver­satile theme that might be adopted instead: good archi­tecture.

Text: Wolfgang Bachmann

Photo: Pouyan Nahed/ uns­plash

About the author:
Wolfgang Bachmann was editor-in-chief and then publisher of the archi­tecture magazine “Bau­meister”. In addition to his jour­na­listic work, he is widely known for his often tongue-in-cheek columns, e.g. in Bau­meister and for the Süd­deutsche Zeitung. A sel­ection of Wolfgang Bachmann’s “Rei­se­fieber” columns has appeared in HOLIDAYARCHITECTURE under the title “Fremde Zimmer” (“Foreign Rooms”).  If you would like to purchase this still highly amusing travel book, you can find remaining copies (German version only!) here.

Archiv­e­Foreign rooms Untitled

Book edition Fremde Zimmer

Edition URLAUBSARCHITEKTUR has published a sel­ection of Wolfgang Bach­mann’s “Rei­se­fieber” columns under the title Fremde Zimmer. If you would like to purchase this still highly amusing travel book, you can still find remaining copies in our shop.

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