Belgian designer and artist Arne Quinze created a temporary installation at five-star Parisian hotel Le Royal Monceau last month, before the hotel's closure for a year-long refurbishment.
The installation, called Rebirth, lasted just one night as part of Demolition Party, a VIP event on 26 June at which guests were invited to help destroy fixtures at the hotel.
Le Royal Monceau will reopen next year, with Philippe Starck designing the new interiors.
See all our stories about Arne Quinze here. Photos are by Pieterjan Mattan and Dave Bruel.
Here's some info from the designer:
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Rebirth by Arne Quinze
JUNE 26TH, 2008 | LE ROYAL MONCEAU | PARIS, FRANCE
PRESS RELEASE
REBIRTH is a unique futuristic and provoking wooden sculpture by Arne Quinze for the well-known and distinguished five-star Paris hotel Le Royal Monceau on Avenue Hoche. (Which has played host to Ernest Hemingway, Walt Disney, Michael Jackson and Robert De Niro to name but a few.)
LE ROYAL MONCEAU, THE REBIRTH. DEMOLITION PARTY
The Art Deco temple will close its doors for an entire year while it undergoes a complete revamp by Philippe Starck. But the hotel doesn’t plan to go quietly, and gives an exclusive party.
In full contrast with the abundantly decorated interior, Arne Quinze will turn heads with a gigantic new futuristic art installation, and an exclusive selection of VIP guests are invited to take out their unresolved issues by partaking in a subsequent ‘Demolition Party’, where they are invited to smash, wreck and generally annihilate anything left standing.
REBIRTH BY ARNE QUINZE
The dazzling sculpture — which lasts for only one exclusive night — embraces the entire hotel building as a conquering and boldness alien stream, breaking through walls, corridors, stairways, lobbies and rooms.
With its 15 km of fluorescent red wood and 40 video screens, the carefully calculated endless flow of energy which REBIRTH represents, offers the public a mind-bowing experience.
REBIRTH reflects the transition moment in which the building’s DNA reveals its disorder, history and countless stories. It bursts out all it’s captured energy of the hotel’s last decades.
It is an organic fragmentation bomb that hangs still in the air, just for one moment, in perfect formation, before dissolving, disappearing and turning into a new, well-structured pattern again...
