Design and architecture practice Jestico + Whiles took on two very different buildings in Berlin and Lodz and created unique hotels for the Andels hotel chain, each with their own style signature and stunning features.

Key facts

PROJECT: Andels Berlin
DESIGN:  Jestico +Whiles
CLIENT: Warimpex, UBX
SIZE: 90,000 sq m
COMPLETION TIME: 19 months

Project description

Having stood empty for almost 15 years, a building by the late Italian architect and theorist Aldo Rossi has become Berlin’s new Andels hotel.

Rossi was fascinated by the way the urban environment adapts to cultural changes, so he would surely be delighted to see the regeneration of his building in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district. A huge structure with four towers designed around a central courtyard – something like a castle keep – the building had been conceived as a mixed-use retail and residential space before the project ran out of money.

German practice Seeger Müller Architekten took on the building’s shell, while British design and architecture practice Jestico +Whiles designed the interior – the company’s fourth project for the Andels chain.

A range of bold, stylish schemes, apposing sumptuous patterns and rich colours with clean, open spaces makes the most of the spacious interior, which contains the biggest conferencing facilities in the city. There is also a ballroom and a separate exhibition hall in the basement.

Most of the hotel’s clientele are business people, including large delegations, so visitors often arrive en masse and have their own dedicated entrance to the conference facilities. Hotel guests and smaller groups enter the main lobby though an entrance combined with a spectacular ovoid gilded feature wall, dubbed ‘the golden egg’.

The lobby itself is a huge expanse of pristine whiteness, punctuated with stylish furniture, including the Walter Knoll curvy black sofa, and decorated with locally sourced works of art.

Ben Tilston, principal designer on the project says that Sky Bar on the 14 floor – his favourite part of the hotel – reverses the monochromatic schemes of the lobby and guestrooms. ‘Here panoramic views of the city from floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides mean that the city actually becomes the wallpaper,’ he says. Bold patented carpets designed by Jestico +Whiles, a nocturnal palette of purple and black, and a bar, back-lit with electric pink, have all helped it become one of Berlin’s highlight nightspot destinations.

The Sky Café, situated immediately below, is made for daytime. A light, crisp palette is off-set by two-tone black and yellow chairs by Walter Knoll, paired with white tables. The bar is fronted with Lamellux – a product which involves an intricate pattern, again designed by Jestico +Whiles, being machine cut into oak veneer and backlit.

On the ground floor, Oscar’s bar is a clean, uncluttered space. The walls are clad with white stone, randomly interspersed with specially made backlit panels. The Walter Knoll chairs on pedestal bases make another appearance here, this time in black and red. They sit on pink rugs over a black timber floor. The bar itself is made of white quartz stone with a front of stacked mirrored green glass.

This is a primarily a business hotel, but Andels out-designs the identikit business chains. Guestrooms have white walls with splashes of colour coming from patterned curtains and loose furniture, either in a fresh citrus (‘not quite lime and not quite lemon’ says Tilston) or a luscious raspberry.

As Tilston says, this hotel is so much a product of Rossi’s architecture. ‘It really dictated the shapes of the rooms and exactly how many guestrooms there are,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t an east project, but the collective experience of everyone involved meant we were able to use this amazing building to our advantage’. Just what Rossi would have wanted.