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Known for its exceptional hospitality, the Italian province of Rimini possesses a rich culture, boasting some of the country's best cuisine and accommodations. Located on the northern shores of Italy, Rimini, which was founded by the Romans in 268 BC, tells its story with both traditional and contemporary architecture that link the past with the present. When one of its most famous hotels—Hotel Duomo—needed a facelift, it called on Ron Arad, principal designer of London-based Ron Arad Associates, who is known for his modern, organic-inspired architecture.

The redesign of the five-level hotel (underground garage, lobby and three upper levels) began about three years ago and is four to 12 weeks from completion [at press time]. "It [Hotel Duomo] would come from a little Italian hotel to an exciting place that will include a bar and relate to the small street," explains Arad. Although the concept drawings and plan were executed several years ago, the laid-back culture of Italian project management is why the hotel is yet to open.

Duomo, the Italian word for cathedral, is a fairly common reference in the country. Rimini's Hotel Duomo stands in the center of town and draws guests in for a couple of nights on average. "Every Italian city has a duomo, and the client wanted to keep this name," says Julian Gilhespie, project architect at Ron Arad Associates. "The reason it's a famous hotel in the area is because it's the only hotel in the historic center."

A distinctive architectural element of the hotel is its exterior façade, which is covered in a bronze skin that goes into the building and forms a bronze ceiling and back wall in the hotel bar. Hotel Duomo is situated on a narrow street, which gives it an opportunity not commonly found in most U.S. cities. "The design is one of those peaceful marriages because it's contemporary, but the material [bronze] is timeless so it works beautifully," Gilhespie explains. "It works so well with the colors of a small, narrow Italian street. Bronze is a very old material…but the more you look in detail into it, the more you can see that the design itself is also very contemporary."

Further linking the building to the sidewalk are the shutters from the façade of the hotel bar. "The hotel reacts to street life in the same way that the glazed panels in the façade stick up into the ceiling—that then opens the bar to the street, so the street becomes part of the bar," Gilhespie says. The bar juts out from the hotel into the sidewalk, inviting passersby inside. Most of the bar surfaces are in bronze while the actual bar counter is made from bronze with mirror-polished stainless steel sides. The bar's bronze back wall terminates in the form of a bronze bench, which runs the whole length of the bar. "The bar is an extension of the pavement," Arad comments.

Both local residents and guests are encouraged to frequent the bar, according to Gilhespie. "The bar is designed not just for hotel guests. The bar itself is also set for morning breakfast. A step in the bar creates two different floor levels—the front of the bar is a standing height for espressos for the morning coffee trade; the back of the bar is a sit-down area where breakfast is served and provides a cozy seating area in the evening for eating or drinking," he says.

Those wanting to bypass the bar, which is located on the left upon immediate entry, can walk straight to the reception desk, located down a corridor separated by two large doors. Serving as the focal point of the hotel, the front desk takes on the form of a sculptural masterpiece. The desk, which is a three-dimensional, stainless steel ring, rests at an angle against a stainless steel column. The reception desk's design, reminiscent of Arad's work on the Maserati showroom in Modena, Italy (see DDI's July 2005 issue, page 22), is functional on the inside, where shelving is embedded into the ring.

Working with a small footprint, typical of hotels in small European cities, Arad and his team began designing from the smallest room up, so that all guest rooms reflect the same design but with different space allocations. Hotel Duomo, which measures approximately 33,000 sq. ft., has standard rooms averaging 250 sq. ft. and suites that are around 430 sq. ft. "In the beginning, Ron said 'give me the smallest room, and we'll work from there,'" Gilhespie says, adding that they had to determine the bare essentials before moving any further.

Since rooms had to be designed to include a bed, bathroom, desk, chair, TV and wardrobe, Arad's team had to be creative in terms of the layout. "Because it's a small hotel, we had to be quite clever in how things are used," Gilhespie says. "The wardrobes in the bedrooms have been turned on their sides so that instead of clothes hanging perpendicular to the hanger, the clothes hang flat. It's almost like hanging stuff on a changing-room wall. We've taken out this space that's not required, so the wardrobe can be deeper."

The design team used Corian—similar to Arad's work on Hotel Puerta América in Madrid (see DDI's March issue, page 52)—throughout the guestrooms because it can be thermoformed to create curves with seamless joints. "Bathroom pods" made of Corian help to achieve Arad's goal of maximizing livable space in the hotel. The bathroom pods—encapsulated within the guestroom space—feature a teak-slatted timber floor and a circular glazed window that allows natural light to pour into the bathroom. This "window" also forms the bed's headboard, positioned on the other side of the pod. This high-gloss lacquered headboard—a perspective view from the bedroom area—has a micro-louver blind sandwiched in the glass for privacy.

Another space-saving measure was removing the mini-bar from the smaller rooms and placing an "honesty" bar around the elevators at the three room levels. (Suites on the ground level contain mini-bars.) "There's sofa seating and people can have a drink before they go to bed, or they can go anytime at night…It's self-service," Gilhespie says.

The design team takes space modularity to another level on the ground floor, where one of the rooms can act as a meeting room/guest suite, or be changed over to two separate bedrooms altogether. "The beds fold up into the walls, and a sliding partition comes out from a special place in the wall and divides the room in half," Gilhespie explains. "The person renting this room as a bedroom is unaware that this is a meeting space as well."

In the space of a year, Rimini welcomes 16 million visitors, who will now have a new place to stay. Once opened, the hotel hopes to resonate with the community as well as its tourists. "Basically it's the details—how the rooms are made, how the reception [area] is made, how the lift lobbies are made," Arad says, commenting on the unique qualities of Hotel Duomo, and everyone knows Arad is a man of many details.