Dorint Sofitel Am Alten Wall, Hamburg
The former post-bank-building was rebuilt in 1999 to become a 5 star congress-hotel with 242 rooms and suites. A large conference-, banquet-areas, and a passage with a confisserie, smokers-lounge, wine-magazine and a restaurant were integrated into the overall-concept. As soon as one enters the hotel lobby, the guest understands the aim of the hotel, that was first one in the city to depart from the ways of traditinal hotels. Rich and poor materials create areas for reflection, and stages of vanity; places, that will be need to initiate current products and persons or to practice global life-quality. A big spectrum of grey tones dominates the building until we reach the guest- and studio-rooms. These tones genarate an unsuspected sense of reality and warmth in the canon of special light- and shadow-areas. The position of the Pool at the "dead end" of the wellness area was caused by the structure of the previous office building. Now, the "Canyon", as the way there, defines the experienced-world of the bather. Virtually exclusively illuminated from the water out, the traces of light reflect their movements on the mosaic-sheds and the upwardly darkening ceiling. The built result becomes quite clear here, that in a conference hotel, the offer of meditative relaxation to business areas is from the same significance.
