All the world’s a hotel

Architect Pia Schmid is at home in a hotel swissinfo.ch

Architect Pia Schmid likens a hotel to a theatre. Her latest achievement is the Art Deco Hotel Montana in Lucerne.

“It’s about staging and dramaturgy. It doesn’t matter if a guest doesn’t like individual details like the candlesticks or certain colours,” says Schmid, while relaxing on a sofa in the wood-panelled lounge of the Montana.

“It should be like seeing a play or going to the cinema – what counts is the overall impression that you come away with.”

Schmid has just put the finishing touches to five years of renovation work at the four-star hotel whose extravagant façade rises imposingly above the lakeshore in Lucerne.

Bold brushstrokes

Built in 1910 as a palace hotel, Schmid has dusted off the historically valuable details, knocked out a few walls, added bold brushstrokes of colour and filled the place with furniture of her own design. The result is a style coined “Art Deco Modern”.

“It’s not possible to strive for a perfect restoration of an old building,” she says.

She has dedicated the last ten years of her professional life to resuscitating old hotels and restaurants, restoring their former glory while adding more than a dash of the modern.

Best four-star

The German-language business magazine “Bilanz” rates about half a dozen of the hotels she has renovated among the best in the country. And the Art Deco Hotel Montana has shot to top of the list as the best four-star city hotel in Switzerland.

Schmid has taken the clear geometrical lines and patterns of art deco to heart at the Montana. The room doors are brown striped and framed in blue. Red stripes and lines of blue squares on the corridor carpets lead guests to their rooms.

One of the junior suites is furnished with checkered armchairs, a red sofa and a blue chaise longue. The parquet floor is made of interlocking wine coloured and black strips.

“It’s exciting to mix different things – old and new – to put a modern cover and design on an old chair, or use an old-fashioned fabric and pattern on a new chair,” Schmid says. “I like to play around.”

David’s genitals

As part of her decorating antics, she has put a copy of Michelangelo’s David on guard in the space between the bed and the bath in one room. The cleaning ladies are instructed to drape a towel over David’s arm in such a way that it covers his genitals. Whether to reveal all is left up to the guest.

Schmid says she is influenced by the star French architect, Jean Nouvel, who is well known for his theatrical touches. “I find it very important to draw up my plans as if I was writing a play,” she says.

Spiral metal staircases lead up into the exclusive “tower” suites where a row of small, rectangular windows give a postcard view of Lake Lucerne and surrounding mountains.

Plastic ducks

A red stripe runs across the brown bedcover and a yellow plastic duck sits on the edge of the round bathtub. After she has ensured the proportions of a room are right, Schmid then works with what she calls the moveable articles.

“I consider colour to be something moveable. A lot of people are afraid of colour because they are unsure, and colour is difficult to work with,” she explains.

“The light always has to be taken into account when choosing colours. Artificial light will have a very different effect on colours than natural light streaming in through a window.”

Schmid’s talents are in great demand. Among the various projects she is currently working on is a renovation of the Bellevue, the grand dame of hotels in the federal capital, Bern.

“I’m a big fan of hotels,” she says. “I am a great user of the hotel institution and I think it is one of the most wonderful inventions.

“It doesn’t matter what category of hotel; as long as you can have room service, you don’t have to clean and you can be pampered. Most of them are in beautiful locations and are interesting buildings.”

by Dale Bechtel

The Montana Live

The hotel is also well known for regular jazz concerts and jam sessions in its “Louis Bar”. Other regular events at the hotel include a dinner theatre (November through January) and cooking courses under the tutelage of the head chef. Montana staff also give guided tours of the hotel twice a month.

The Art Deco Hotel Montana has 62 rooms, including several junior suites and two tower suites. Prices range from SFr285 ($190) for the night in a standard room at the back of the hotel to SFr700 for one of the tower suites. Included in the room price is the plastic duck, which guests are encouraged to take home.