The Art of Putting Ulysses to Sleep

From Rabat. There is something about the light in Rabat that defies simple geographical descriptions, for it comes from the Atlantic, crosses the Bou Regreg, is reflected off the city’s light-coloured surfaces and rises up the Mohammed VI Tower, one of Morocco’s new landmarks, 313 kilometres from Ceuta, where a very different story unfolded, and amongst the many dead—it is still unclear exactly how many—it seems to lighten even the very fabric of reality.

The tallest building in North Africa does not merely dominate the landscape in terms of height; rather, it ends up interpreting it in its own way and absorbing it, becoming one with it. Within that vertical structure, which houses flats, offices and the new Waldorf Astoria Rabat Salé, luxury eschews ostentation to become a narrative, taking centre stage in a place where over seven thousand works of art (yes, you read that correctly) accompany visitors as they make their way through the hotel, following a storyline that weaves together Moroccan craftsmanship, memory, nature and contemporary art. From a distance, it reflects the sky with an almost ethereal surface, whilst at sunset it takes on that cinematic quality reminiscent of certain architectural scenes from the film "Arrival". Even the storks, a familiar sight in the capital’s skies, reappear in Achraf Touloub’s large metal installation, suspended between solid and void like an ethereal alphabet. Pierre-Yves Rochon, the most influential luxury hotel designer of the last forty years, observes them with the attention of someone who seeks, in every project, a meeting point between place and imagination.

In "Il Foglio della Moda", he describes them as creatures ‘suspended between the tangibility of nature and the enchantment of myth’, and in this remark, made almost in passing during our breakfast, lies the essence of his approach to hospitality. A Frenchman, born in 1946, he has been designing some of the world’s most famous hotels for over forty years, from the Four Seasons George V in Paris to the Savoy in London, right up to the new Danieli in Venice, which is due to open during the upcoming Venice International Film Festival, as well as the Peninsula, Shangri-La and Waldorf Astoria hotels, starting with the very first one in New York. His work consists of “striking a difficult balance”, that is, making “a hotel international without erasing its local character. Every hotel”, he explains, “exists within a very delicate balance. On the one hand, it must belong to an international tradition of hospitality; on the other, it must preserve the identity of the place that hosts it. Each time, the challenge starts all over again. No formula can be replicated, because every city has its own light, its own history and its own idea of elegance. I think a hotel should be reassuring,” he adds. “When you travel, especially for work, you feel more vulnerable because you’re away from home. Sometimes you go to another place or another country and find yourself, on your own, facing customs that aren’t your own. I’m thinking in particular of the room and the night. A hotel must be reassuring and protective in this sense, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be innovative or surprising.” For him, elegance is neither surprise nor recognition, but something else, something much more subtle. “I prefer concrete images, such as a rose that truly smells of roses, because it represents a luxury infinitely more authentic than many expensive objects. Quality remains recognisable without needing to be proclaimed, just as is the case with certain materials that age well and acquire depth over time.” Always wearing bespoke suits and shirts and Chanel perfume, Rochon continually returns to the theme of space. “Volume,” he maintains, “accounts for half of luxury. Even before the furnishings come the proportions, the relationship between solid and void, the way light enters a room at different times of the day. Architecture produces a physical sensation even before an aesthetic one. The same applies to the body, which perceives spaces with an immediacy that precedes any rational judgement.” In his view, interior design thus resembles a subtle form of psychology. “Colours, symmetries, perspectives and light alter the way people inhabit a space. Geometric balance conveys calm. Light influences moods far more than decorations do, and even a colour considered challenging can produce unexpected effects, because every culture forms a different relationship with colour.” A skilled architect, then, is like a fashion designer: they become an observer of human behaviour as well as a creator of spaces. The design and layout of a room can influence the way people live or move within it, depending on how it is designed. “If a room is designed around axes, balance and symmetry, people subconsciously feel at ease and serene – I have proof of this. Whether I design a red room, a white room or a sky-blue one, different categories of clients from different countries already have a particular sensitivity to colour in their subconscious. Then there are colours that are more stimulating than others; for example, I find it very difficult to get people to accept red rooms. Everyone thinks it’s stimulating, that it isn’t relaxing, whereas that isn’t necessarily true.” Technology, and light in particular, “are creative tools that are constantly evolving to enhance the quality of a night’s stay in a hotel”. It’s wonderful to sleep, and above all to try to do so as well as possible and in the best possible place, because for Pierre-Yves Rochon, “the best ideas come from dreams”.

Had he been to draw inspiration from fashion designers, Rochon would probably have chosen Yohji Yamamoto and Rick Owens. His artistic lineage reveals a great deal about his sensibility, and this is confirmed shortly afterwards when he reminds us that ‘the ability to evoke a perception always comes before aesthetics’. He also prefers to imagine beauty as “a form of freedom. If it were a form of order, we would be prisoners of beauty and would have only one form of it. Freedom, on the other hand, is everything. Beauty constrained by immutable rules would eventually lose its vitality. Every place, every era and every person, on the other hand, adds a different nuance to this quest’. Perhaps it is precisely this openness to change that makes his interiors so difficult to pigeonhole into a specific trend, because they traverse the years without chasing after them. “Hotels preserve an important part of contemporary history. They host encounters destined to change individual destinies, celebrations, separations, moments of waiting and reconciliations. There are hotels that become symbols of a city, others that remain linked to the private memories of those who spent a decisive night there. Architecture thus ends up engaging in a dialogue with literature, because every room holds the potential for a story.” The materials used to create them can obviously be many and varied, but not all are easy to shape. The most difficult of these is education, which encompasses time, memory, the relationship with the guest, and the ability to listen and understand. Hospitality arises long before any physical objects, because it begins with the look with which one welcomes someone.”