25hours Hotel on Langstrasse in Zurich

Plenty of hotels provide more than a place to sleep these days. Their of­fer­ings attract local res­i­dents along with overnight guests. The 25hours hotel chain has been going down this road for over ten years now. Each of its es­tab­lish­ments - there are a total of nine now – is cus­tom-de­signed and has a spe­cific local flavour. The latest ad­di­tion is Hotel Zurich Langstrasse, which, given its lo­ca­tion between Eu­ropaallee and the Langstrasse quarter, pro­vided what may have been the most ex­cit­ing and awkward chal­lenge. Studio Aisslinger was re­spon­si­ble for the in­te­rior design, as it had been in Bikini Berlin. The part of town in­volved hugs the railway line to Zurich’s central station as far as Langstrasse, an area that may not be every­body’s cup of tea.

Work has been pro­ceed­ing since 2009 on de­vel­op­ing a plot 860,000 square feet in size to a mas­ter­plan by KCAP Ar­chi­tects&Plan­ners. At its western end, Eu­ropaallee abuts the Langstrasse quarter in Dis­trict 4, a het­ero­ge­neous dis­trict char­ac­terised by broth­els, small gal­leries, shops and bars as well as a broad mix of res­i­dents. The new 25hours hotel is a plain stand-alone build­ing located at pre­cisely the point where the smart new-build area ends and the more tu­mul­tuous area begins. The seven-storey build­ing was re­alised to­gether with an ad­join­ing res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial build­ing by the Zurich-based firm of e2a eckert eckert ar­chitek­ten.

With its dark façade in glass-fi­bre con­crete and large window frames in pow­der-coated alu­minium, the build­ing almost comes across as being a block of black­ness. Things are far more colour­ful inside, though, fea­tur­ing a mix of ma­te­ri­als and themes: raw ex­posed-con­crete ceil­ings con­trast with shiny fin­ishes, rough-sawn timber with poly­chrome fabrics. Aisslinger, who had, after all, started out as a fur­ni­ture and product de­signer, au­thored most of the fur­ni­ture himself. It is only logical, there­fore, that Aisslinger should select FSB 10 1226 for the hotel rooms, a door handle he con­ceived himself.