Five artists for Ace Hotel London

It is no coincidence that in Shoreditch neighborhood arises one of the most intriguing pieces focused on art and design influences that London Design Festival embraces. At 100 Shoreditch High Street, in the heart of London’s most dynamic and devoted to creativity neighborhood, unconventional by nature, historically open to influences and cultures.

Here once again, and not by accident, open the doors of the Ace Hotel London, the American chain that redrew the hospitality boundaries, reinventing the concept of hotel, but redirecting its conventions to keep them fresh, energized, human.

Synergy and affinity between the structure and the hosting district have carried out a project, in its third edition this year, that has become a significant stage for the September Design Week: Ready Made Go is the exhibition curated by Laura Houseley (of Modern Design Review magazine), which features (from September 19-24) a series of products specially commissioned and conceived by London designers. Five creators were involved this year for the creation of six new works: Ian McIntyre, James Shaw, Michael Marriott, Oscar Diaz, Soft Baroque.

From ceramics to furniture, though from decoration to interior design, the products’ concept – intended for permanent use within the hotel – finds a common denominator in the main theme of this edition, linked to sustainability and the use of recycled materials.

Michael Marriott has designed in Smile Plastic (a sheet material made from recycled plastic) a set of high bar stools. James Shaw designs the cake and accessories counter for the Ace Hotel’s Bulldog Edition Café using the plastic baroque, an extruded recycled plastic technique that the artist himself developed in his studio in South London. His signature is also present in the installation that welcomes guests at the hotel entrance, as an introduction to the artistic path that develops inside.

A series of coffee tables, made by the Soft Baroque duo, is intended to decorate the lobby of the hotel with its innovative material feeling, resulting from a new element, Silicastone by Alusid, obtained from ceramic and glass scraps.

The energy-filled atmosphere that pervades Shoreditch seems to penetrate and pervade the spaces of the Ace Hotel, shaping a new form of creativity that has to do with the more pragmatic expression of design as the more ephemeral and reflective art revelation.

And right in the big windows of the hotel, a parallel project takes shape, of which the Ace Hotel is a supporter, entitled 70 x 40 x 50. On display – always curated by Laura Houseley – the works of eight young design graduates: Bettina Boehm, Callum Partridge, Laura Stevens, Nicholas Marschnel, Mo Tizro, Sylvain Bellis, Victoria Andrew, and Will Drye.

Thus the mission is fulfilled, as acclaimed in the Ace Hotel “manifesto”, which identifies in its hospitality project the potential for the creation of a fluid and real community.