This came in last week from Amy, who was travelling in Switzerland and thinking of AT.com:
I just returned from a week-long trip through Eastern Switzerland. Apartment Therapy was on my mind quite a bit as I browsed the many furniture stores with my patient girlfriend. It's immediately clear how design is a part of their identity as a country. Everything there is beautiful in a very clean, German, light laquered pine sort of way...
On the evening before our flight back to New York we stayed at the Park Inn, where the rooms are supposed to look like this:
Instead, they looked like my photo [at top]. Gah! It was as if the hotel had taken on a McDonald's franchise. Never in my life did I think I'd see Golden Arches headboards. Never could I imagine them approaching tasteful! I'm not sure if this is triumph or loss for the world of Scandanavian design. But it is pretty funny.
Amy
(Thanks, Amy!)
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
that headboard would make me crave french fries.
also vaguely suggestive of breasts.
and just to be picky and obnoxious, switzerland isn't part of scandinavia.
I wanna see pillows shaped like hamburgers and french fries... I do, I do! Just wait until the burger-themed boudoir hits Design on a Dime or similar... (jokes about "hot and juicy" I will leave for someone else).
living in Switzerland, I can say that most Swiss people would be horrified to hear their design being compared to anything German... some serious competition issues there.
There really is a McDonalds Hotel:
http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/press/mcds/times240301.html
You could even fly McDonalds Airplane to get there:
http://www.spiegel.de/sptv/extra/0,1518,grossbild-84287-113767,00.html
Apparently, the Park Inn was the McDonalds Hotel
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g188113-d196066-r3292284-Park_Inn_Zurich_Airport-Zurich.html
The arch headboards are in both photos. As well, in the "supposed to look" photo the desk chair has matching arched legs. That elliptical shape seems to fit with the shape of the desk.
Eastern Switzerland!? Who would say that?! What Canton was she visiting? And, if she were in one of the eastern cantons, she would be closer to Austria. Anyhow . . .she just got back from Switzerland and she is refering to it as Scandanavia?!
disapointing if this is the only thing that amy gained from travelling through eastern switzerland. both in terms of old and contemporary design, architecture and art switzerland has much more to offer. did she visit any of the museums? the kunsthalle in st. gallen? any of the herzog and de meuron buildings? also, while I agree that a lot of hotel and apartment design is 'clean in a laquered pine' sort of way, they do have other more authentic or original and less cheap looking design. a lot of it is quite high-end and expensive.
I didn't expect such a backlash by poking a little fun at a well-loved genre of design, hoping to get a chuckle from people.
I spent the week at St. Gallen, which is an extraordinarily beautiful city. I have some great photos of the architecture and landscape in the city and around the small villages we visited on our train trip put and back from the Bodensee. If Maxwell and others are interested, I would be happy to share them as a slide show.