Room without a view: Hotel space doubles as contemplative art

The work was created for The Beaumont, a luxury hotel being developed in Mayfair by Corbin & King. ‘It was commissioned as part of Westminster Council’s requirement for public art in new buildings,’ says Martine de Geus, a spokesperson for the company.

From outside, Room appears to be a public artwork in the form of a geometrical figure crouching next to the hotel. But inside it is an intensely private space, a place in the luxury hotel for contemplation and even sensory deprivation.

‘Shutters over the window provide total blackout and very subliminal levels of light allow me to sculpt darkness itself,’ Gormley said in a media release. ‘My ambition for this work is that it should confront the monumental with the most personal, intimate experience.’

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