The rooms here welcome you with open arms. Where you feel so good from the moment you arrive that you are in as relaxed a state as you can be, body and soul. It is precisely this cocoon of harmony and comfort that the architects Ascan Mergenthaler and Yasmin Kherad were aiming to achieve. With their team from Herzog & de Meuron, they supervised the conversion into the current hotel rooms in the Volkshaus Basel in 2020.
Experience, creativity and plenty of flair
They already transformed the restaurant, bar, inner courtyard and event rooms in 2012. And were now able to follow on from this work conceptually. Nonetheless, redesigning a hotel is a special challenge for architects. “Hotel rooms are very intimate places; their vibe and atmosphere are crucial to the guests’ comfort. This means paying a lot of attention to details and making sure everything fits together harmoniously”, explains Ascan Mergenthaler. Mergenthaler, a senior partner with Herzog & de Meuron, and Kherad, an associate, are an experienced team. They have already completed a few projects together – among others, a hotel in New York; so they have plenty of experience. Yasmin Kherad’s love of interior design was very useful in the Volkshaus project. Kherad, who is half Iranian and grew up in Hamburg, has plenty of opportunity at Herzog & de Meuron to demonstrate her flair for colour, form and material. The Volkshaus Basel was the first project in Switzerland of Ascan Mergenthaler’s career, despite the fact that he joined Herzog & de Meuron as a young student in Stuttgart in 1993.
The wallpaper is meant to round off the room, not overload it.
Delight is in the detail
The pandemic meant that they were both predominantly in Switzerland in 2020 and had plenty of time to closely supervise the renovation of the hotel. And this was necessary because the old fabric of the building was full of surprises, not all of them positive ones. However, Ascan Mergenthaler stresses: “We love uncovering clues and examining everything closely. For us it is about recognising the potential of a place and then utilizing it to the full; to chafe yourself with what you find there, to take your inspiration from it.” The pair of them installed an entire hotel room in the old building structure as a test-model. “So we could already check whether our ideas would work at the preliminary stage”, says the architect. And the practical trial proved it: they do. The rooms enfold you like a warm blanket. They are rooms which can teach you a lot about harmonious spatial design, choice of materials and budget planning.
“We really were very creative with the budget we had been set”, says the architect, revealing more details. For example, simple standards were complemented and upgraded with precious materials. One special detail is the wallpaper. The original depiction of people strolling in the park is an old engraving of a scene at the Petersplatz (square next to the university). “The wallpaper is meant to round off the room, not overload it. It should be timeless, not decorative or trendy”, explains Yasmin Kherad. Another eye-catching piece is the lounge chair, which was designed by Herzog & de Meuron especially for the Volkshaus Basel. The ottoman, which you can also use as a repository for your suitcase and the night table, which can also serve as a stool, are both designs from Herzog & de Meuron. The fact that pieces were designed especially for the hotel is partly due to the building’s owners as well. The real estate developer and restaurant entrepreneur Adrian Hagenbach and Leopold Weinberg acquired the Volkshaus Basel in 2011 and their influence on the end result, that it looks the way it does now, was decisive.
Peaceful, simple and almost like home
The pleasure both architects take in the completed Volkshaus project is palpable. Yasmin Kherad raves about the peaceful atmosphere, the vibe. She knows exactly which room she would spend the night in. “In a corner room facing the garden. Because of the plane trees in the courtyard, which harmonise so beautifully in spring and summer with the typical Volkshaus green.” Ascan Mergenthaler, on the other hand, is a big fan of the model bedroom – this room that you enter through the wall unit. “This was a real invention” he says, “it’s spacious but not too huge, it has style, it is reminiscent of the place this used to be, very simple, not overdone and nonetheless it has an incredible, natural elegance.” The boutique hotel started receiving guests at the end of 2020. And with the hotel, the staff, who welcome the hotel guests in at least as warmly as the rooms themselves. With wide open arms and that scent of home.
