However, until the 80s hospitality still obeyed a traditional vision in which hotels were divided in three categories that responded to how society was built (the budget hotels, mid-range hotels and luxury). 

How did we go from a beautiful socio-economic optimisation to Ian Schargger’s phone call to a  – then unknown  – french designer to a worldwide boutique hotel phenomenon? I would like to take you for a flânerie in the 1980s to discover this story’s premises. 

The late 70s are synonymous with a social revolution with the birth of a new urban generation that was to move above their parent’s education and social background. They were called the yuppies, translated with hipster for contemporary comparison. The epitome of such a dissolution of class was of course Studio 54. On the burning dancefloor the jet set was dancing with beautiful nobodies, poor or rich, of any kind of ethnicity, religions and sexuality, anything went as long as you were glamorous to convince the bouncer. 

In my humble opinion the New hotel in Athens is one of the proud heirs of the boutique hotel impulse. Owned by the Greek tycoon and progressive collector Dakis Joannous the New Hotel was entirely designed by the Capana Brothers. The hotel originates as the phoenix rising from the ashes of the Olympic Palace hotel. It was completely reconceived by the Drazilian duo terribles Humberto and Fernando Campana and opened in June 2011. 

For this project the Campana brothers decided to bring a group of 20 young architects from the department of architecture of Thessalony University to design the plates, glasses, side lamps, coffee tables and the seating. The lobby was covered with long strips of wood – echoing the famous Favela chair – sprouting from the ground to grow into fabulous upcycled trees. The hotel became a fantastic interdisciplinary process fostering innovation and creativity reinterpreting Greece with a Brazilian eye. 

There are many hotel gems like the New Hotel to be discovered and the summer will free us to explore. But next time you put your luggage down in a design hotel think about all the groovy moves on the Studio 54 dance floor that lead to this revolution.