The World of Hospitality Issue 15 2016 | Page 40

40 Hotel Mercure the World Of Hospitality Hotel Mercure In Bucharest Hotel Mercure Bucharest City Center is a building with a story behind. The story appeared as a design consequence and has been further used as a feature for the hotel, which is a story-telling type. The hotel facades have taken and reinterpreted architectural and symbolic elements from the immediate vicinity, so as to emit a cultural message, both urban and stylistically consistent. As it is situated in a historic and eclectic neighborhood, but very central, we’ve had several attempts to find means of stylistic expression, until we decided that the future building must contribute synergistically to the character of the area, which led to a contextual approach. The houses on this particular street were an inspiration for the arched windows, which we alternated with rectangular ones, in a playful manner; also, we reiterated one of the Romanian Athenaeum’s main architectural features, the portico, which is detached from the main volume and ceded to public space.