Housed in a renovated marble 1950s office building in Vienna, the interiors of AIME Studio, Hoxton Hotel’s newest home, celebrate arts and crafts and post-war modernism.
Creative studio AIME Studio has transformed the former administration building of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and Industry into The Hoxton Vienna, designed by architect Karl Appel.
The building currently features 196 guest rooms, a rooftop bar and swimming pool, a restaurant, cocktail bar, private apartments, and an auditorium for events and programs.
By focusing on mid-century Austrian design, the hotel aims to show guests a less classical side of what is often thought of as a traditional European city.
Appel is known for creating the “Second Ringstrasse” style of the post-war Restoration period, which the studio used as a reference for its designs.
“Our aim was to create a design that respects the history of the building and preserves its 1950s architectural style,” Aaron Gibson of AIME Studios told Dezeen.
“We visited buildings in Vienna designed by Karl Appel and other famous Austrian architects of the early 20th century such as Adolf Loos and Otto Wagner. These buildings are part of the interior of Hoxton Vienna. ,” Gibson added.
Hoxton Vienna’s double-height lobby preserves key features and details of Appel’s original 1950s design.
The original office building’s stone and metal mid-century finishes give the renovation a neutral, semi-industrial feel.
“We intentionally used key features and details of Karl Appel’s original architecture and interior design as the basis for decision-making throughout the first floor,” the studio said.
AIME Studio also collaborated with the Austrian Federal Monuments Agency, which implements the Monuments Protection Act with the aim of researching, protecting and maintaining Austria’s cultural heritage.
Together, they selected furniture items for the hotel that reflected the 1950s, including light fixtures, armchairs, sofas, and even the fabrics and textiles used in the space.
“We inherited great existing features such as large-format terrazzo floors, travertine walls and corrugated aluminum columns, all of which are fine examples of 1950s architecture,” AIME told Dezeen.
The interior scheme complements the existing restrained color palette of soft shades of natural stone in green-gray, beige and blue tones.
The studio also draws inspiration from the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Werkstätte), one of the 20th century’s longest-running design movements and an important organization for the development of modernism.
Centered around the Austrian capital, it bridged traditional manufacturing methods and avant-garde aesthetics.
In the bedroom, geographically patterned curtains are influenced by iconic workshop fabrics, while a shirred headboard takes inspiration from Loos’s style.
“We chose Viennese fabrics with muted colors and quiet, small-scale patterns that represent a modern interpretation of the Viennese Verstedt Arts and Crafts movement,” Gibson explained.
In addition to the usual hotel program of rooms and restaurants, The Hoxton Vienna features a large auditorium designed in a 1950s pale yellow and blue palette and equipped with mid-century wood paneling, furniture and fixtures.
The auditorium hosts stand-up comedy, gigs, conferences and other events as part of The Hoxton Vienna’s extensive cultural programme.
The hotel also has private ‘apartments’, a series of open-plan rooms across different levels, including kitchen, dining, sitting and meeting spaces.
The interiors of the apartments distill the essence of AIME Studios’ interior design at The Hoxton, including Viennese Verstedt patterns and colors, mid-century modernist furniture and light fixtures, and artwork that reflects the period.
Other The Hoxton hotels recently featured on Dezeen include The Hoxton Charlottenburg in Berlin and the Ricardo Bofill-inspired The Hoxton Poblenou in Barcelona, opening for the first time in Germany. did.
Photographed by Julius Hiltzberger.