Inntel Crazy Hotel of Houses

The Dutch town of Zaandam is being radically revamped and the recently opened Inntel Hotel is first to be completed.

The Inntel hotel imagined by Wilfried van Winden, which stands on the Provincialeweg, is the new town centre’s eye-catcher. The building with 160 rooms and a conference complex will in part be constructed on a viaduct. The colossal, twelve-storey-high hotel tower, essentially square in plan, is a monumental stacking and interpretation of various green-painted house types typical of the Zaan region, ranging from a stately notary’s dwelling to worker’s cottages.

‘The Blue House’, inspired by the work Claude Monet painted at Zaandam in 1871, is the ultimate attention-grabber. The overall result is striking. The varied fenestration, broad protruding sections and bay windows, and decorative white ridge-pieces lend depth and an expressive relief to the façade.

The hotel is an excellent example of the ‘fusion architecture’ championed by van Winden. In this case the ‘fusion’ stands for an inventive manner of interlinking the present and the past, coupling tradition and innovation, and blending high and low culture. So on you next trip to the Netherlands try the Inntel Hotel. It’s a lot more solid than it appears!