A Home For Tourists. Two Cases of Hotel Interior Design In Majorca

Abstract

[eng] In 1963, two major works of tourist architecture were taking place in Majorca. On the one hand, José Antonio Corrales and Ramón Vázquez Molezún were commissioned to design new suites for Hotel Formentor, in the north of the island, which had just been extended. On the other hand, Federico Correa and Alfons Milà were in charge of the interiors of Coderch’s Hotel de Mar. The project involved all spaces –from rooms to the bar– and all possible scales –from the stage of the dancing room to the vents. Though both projects are quite unknown, especially the one in Hotel Formentor, they are major examples of hotel interior design and two of the few cases in the Balearics, because this discipline is often considered as a second–class activity by architects, promoters and historians. The paper aims at recovering these projects that no longer exist. The first one has been recently demolished and the second one has undergone several changes from the 1980’s on. Through the analysis of the project plans, drawings, reports and photographs and also by comparing them with other works by their authors, a study is proposed of shapes, materials and colours used to arrange the furnishings and to create a homely feeling. The conclusions point to a connection with the beginnings of industrial design in Spain and an intimate relationship with other personal designs by the same architects. In relation with the international context, Correa and Milà are closely linked to Italian influences. But, above all, the soberness of both projects breaks with the overwhelming decoration of some of the most popular American hotel designers, as Morris Lapidus, and set them up as alternatives to the usual impersonality and excesses of leisure interiors.