"This city is a point upon a map of fog."
vs.
"there's more liberty in an interior to invent a narrative..."






the upstairs bar...




For the W San Francisco, the hotel tapped the genius of starchitect Stanley Saitowitz of Natoma Architects to redesign the first 2 floors...

Stanley Saitowitz
went for a darker look at San Francisco, a night portrait of the city using dark grays and purples for the color scheme. His vision as an architect is so clearly evident in his work as an interior designer — the décor projects the sensation of being outside rather than in. Playing on Bierce's "map," the floor emulates the grid of the city, the furniture extruding from it as its buildings would.

Playing on the "fog," the dark color scheme gets lighter and cloudier as one ascends the the hotel, the fog becoming "densest" at the top, much as it would be standing atop San Francisco's Twin Peaks. Guests can faintly make out the traces of city monuments on the walls. It's truly reminiscent of San Francisco at night, the time when Saitowitz says "cities are most magical and fun." As for the differing roles between architect and designer, "there's more liberty in an interior to invent a narrative," said Saitowitz, whose past interiors have been famously high-concept. "It's more circumscribed. You're asked to make a statement or create a kind of world in an interior."


read entire article here...and more images... (Via Art Info)
all text by Janelle Zara








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