Hotels I've Never Stayed In
I am interested in how the fanciful architecture of pleasure palace hotels is superimposed on modernist boxes. The architecture of a resort hotel signifies safety, the safety of a brand name. It is a known quantity, a known experience that is cobbled together from our various fantasies. These are not specific fantasies, but ones that are in the current of contemporary culture. It is a moderated experience that anticipates our wants and needs collectively and imposes them upon us. The architecture of Atlantis is a modernist grid. It functions as a bunker, a fortification against nature and allows us to experience nature and native culture within an artificial construct. The bunker obviates the need to interact with unknown quantities. The references to Roman ruins and Asian pagodas represent a contained exoticism.