Three Times 100 Rooms

Abstract

This hotel was built in 1932 at same time as the adjoining railway station. Geneva at that time boasted an urban décor whose modernist classicism epitomised the pre-war age. By 1996, the Hôtel Cornavin no longer lived up to its four-star classification, nor was it compatible with the ever-increasing density of the city. The project involved reorganising the entire spatial arrangement, adding 60 rooms and a panoramic breakfast room as well as redesigning the hundred existing rooms. The stone architecture of the façades was restored and the metal skeleton of the structure extended at three levels; the new cladding was suspended from metal columns 120 mm in diameter and 12 metres high. This acrobatic scheme made it possible to endow each room, opposite the bed and the translucent glass of the bathroom, with a single glazed-in view of the urban prospect outside.