The Volkshotel in Amsterdam is a radical rethink of the design hotel, with an industrial aesthetic and the personality of a hip club. Müller van Tol, the locally based partnership of Christiane Müller and Bas van Tol, have drawn on their experience of designing restaurants and clubs to infuse raw space with a lively buzz. “The owner and the people who work for him are young, so the place has a youthful vibe, but we wanted to appeal to a diverse clientele,” says van Tol.
The seven-story concrete-frame block was built in the 1960s for de Volskrant newspaper, and when that ceased publication the offices were used as temporary workspaces for creatives and entrepreneurs. A new owner allowed a third of them to stay in the four-story wing. Müller van Tol enhanced the top floor restaurant and club, and opened up the ground floor as a lobby-bar, with a conference room opening off to one side. This has become a lively meeting place for hotel guests, office tenants, and local residents. Floors 2-6 were reconfigured as 170 guest rooms of different sizes.
“We stripped the main block to its structural frame, cleaning and sealing the concrete columns and floors, and leaving ceiling ducts exposed,” explains van Tol. “Elementary comfort was the guiding principle. To make the rooms affordable for backpackers, the basic room is a concrete cell with two futons on the painted concrete floor, a shower and minimal storage. Others have quality beds and sleeping galleries, and all are enlivened with different red-brown tones and functional lighting”. Old black and white newspaper photographs–many recalling the street protests of the 1960s through the 1980s–are silkscreened onto walls, as a reminder of the original occupants. Eight larger rooms were custom designed by artists.
What lifts this space far above the typical youth hostel or motel room, is the attention to detail. Deep reveals around bedroom windows provide a place to sit and gaze out while browsing one’s laptop. The austere finishes feel crafted and each room, however humble, has its own distinct character. Pivoting and folding shutters enclose the conference room and the old limestone pavers in the lobby have been refurbished.
