MODERN HOTEL, A HOSTING MACHINE

Abstract

This paper aims to produce a theoretical essay about the modern hotel from a historical and critical perspective, seeking to broaden knowledge about the mutation of this architectural typology in the context of the development of mass tourism, hypothesizing that hotels are "lodging machines". This is a conceptual discussion aimed at fostering and subsidizing the debate on hotels built between the late 1940s and the 1970s, in the context of the Modern Movement. To this end, he recalls the semantic and typological antecedents of the hotel and discusses how the social practices of mass tourism and the role of the state were reflected and reproduced in the mechanisms of modern hotels. Then, it presents aspects relating to the formal and functional typologies that support the idea that the modern hotel is a lodging machine, emphasizing some characteristics that express its architectural modernity. Finally, it highlights the historical and heritage relevance of modern hotels and the importance of documentation for intervention and conservation of this collection as material witnesses of modern architecture and mass tourism.

Keywords:
Hotel; Lodging Establishments; Modern Architecture; Mass Tourism; Architectural Typology

Resumo

O objetivo do presente artigo é produzir um ensaio teórico sobre o hotel moderno em uma perspectiva histórica e crítica, buscando ampliar o conhecimento sobre a mutação dessa tipologia arquitetônica no contexto de desenvolvimento do turismo de massa, levantando como hipótese que os hotéis constituem “máquinas de hospedar”. Trata-se de uma discussão conceitual a fim de fomentar e subsidiar a discussão sobre os hotéis construídos entre fins da década de 1940 e 1970, no contexto do Movimento Moderno. Para tanto, resgata os antecedentes semânticos e tipológicos do hotel e discute como as práticas sociais do turismo de massas e o papel do Estado refletiram e reproduziram nos mecanismos dos hotéis modernos. Na sequência, apresenta aspectos relativos às tipologias formais e funcionais que sustentam que o hotel moderno é uma máquina de hospedar, enfatizando algumas características que expressam a sua modernidade arquitetônica. Por fim, sublinha a relevância histórica e patrimonial dos hotéis modernos e a importância da documentação para fins de intervenção e conservação desse acervo como testemunhas materiais da arquitetura moderna e do turismo de massas.

Palavras-chave:
Hotel; Meios de Hospedagem; Arquitetura Moderna; Turismo de Massa; Tipologia Arquitetônica

Resumen

El objetivo de este artículo es producir un ensayo teórico sobre el hotel moderno desde una perspectiva histórica y crítica, buscando ampliar el conocimiento sobre la mutación de esta tipología arquitectónica en el contexto del desarrollo del turismo de masas, partiendo de la hipótesis de que los hoteles son máquinas de alojar. Se trata de una discusión conceptual destinada a fomentar y subvencionar el debate sobre los hoteles construidos entre finales de la década de 1940 y la década de 1970, en el contexto del Movimiento Moderno. Para ello, recuerda los antecedentes semánticos y tipológicos del hotel y discute cómo las prácticas sociales del turismo de masas y el papel del Estado se reflejaron y reprodujeron en los mecanismos de los hoteles modernos. A continuación, presenta aspectos relativos a las tipologías formales y funcionales que sustentan la idea de que el hotel moderno es una máquina de alojar, destacando algunas de las características que expresan su modernidad arquitectónica. Por último, se subraya la relevancia histórica y patrimonial de los hoteles modernos y la importancia de la documentación a efectos de intervención y conservación de este conjunto como testigos materiales de la arquitectura moderna y del turismo de masas.

Palabras-clave:
Hotel; Medio se Alojamiento; Arquitectura Moderna; Turismo de Masa; Tipología Arquitectónica

INTRODUCTION

The construction of hotels aligned with the premises of the avant-garde architecture of the Modern Movement was only established in the middle of the 20th century and took place at the same time as the development of mass tourism. However, this topic has been little considered in the history of architecture. These omissions occurred both concerning modern hotels built in hegemonic countries, such as the United States (with a hotel tradition dating back to the 19th century) and Europe; and in regions of the world that occupied a more marginal position in the economic, political and cultural scenario of modernity, but which nevertheless left an important legacy for modern architectural culture.

Pevsner's book, "A History of Building Types" (1976), is one of the few publications with a theoretical approach about hotel typology, although his analysis mainly emphasizes the typological transformations of the hotel in the 19th century. As a result, the historian leaves an important gap in transformations of hotel typology throughout the 20th century¹, as well as the relationship with mass tourism.

In this way, this paper comprises a theoretical essay about the modern hotel from a historical and critical perspective, seeking to broaden knowledge about the mutation of this architectural typology in the context of the development of mass tourism. The work aims to promote a conceptual discussion to foster and subsidize the discussion on the valorization, documentation, and conservation of the collection of hotels built in the context of the Modern Movement, enhancing the production of knowledge about the subject.

The hypothesis put forward in this work is that modern hotels are, par excellence, hybrid architectural typologies and constitute authentic lodging machines. The hybrid building can be considered not only as a structure that combines the functions of a mixed-use building but also as a construction that reconciles and concentrates different uses, mixed flows, and complex programs in one large building.

For Fernandes; Mozas; and Arpa (2011), the hybrid building is characterized by the magnitude of its dimensions and, above all, by the technological resources that are activated and employed to make its programmatic complexity possible. Therefore, the hybrid character of the modern hotel, derived from a complex program full of hierarchies of functions, uses, and flows is related to the technological mechanisms brought about by modernity (structural and constructive aspects, materials, equipment, installations, furniture, etc.) which, in turn, constitute the mechanisms and gears of a kind of lodging machine.

In addition, the hybrid character of the hotel also refers to the historical accumulation resulting from the typological metamorphoses seen in lodging facilities and the assimilation of attributes from other types of buildings (PAIVA, 2021). Thus, the theoretical approach adopted is anchored in the concepts of type and typology, since the hybrid building is identified as something generic and flexible, but which has had significant backgrounds in the past.

The methodological path emphasizes the semantic and typological background of the hotel and discusses how the social practices of mass tourism and the role of the state reflected and reproduced the construction of modern hotels in the Western context in the period between the 1940s and early 1970s, highlighting their mechanisms.

As a synthesis, it presents aspects related to the formal and functional typologies that support the idea that the modern hotel is a lodging machine, emphasizing some characteristics that express the architectural modernity of hotels.

THE SEMANTIC AND TYPOLOGICAL GENESIS OF THE HOTEL

The etymological origin of the word hotel goes back to the term hostel in archaic French, which evolved into hôtel². The term derives from the Latin word hospitale, meaning inn, which also gives rise to the word hospital (PEVSNER, 1976). Thus, hotel and its cognates derive from the Latin hospes, meaning stranger, guest.

In France, the term hotel, as well as being associated with lodging establishments, is also used to mean a palace for administrative purposes and public institutions, such as Hôtel de Ville (Maire), denoting town hall, Hôtel des Vents as an auction house, or Hôtel de la Monnaie as a national mint. The word also refers to Hôtel-Dieu (God's lodging), the old name given to the main hospitals in French cities. The Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, built in the second half of the 17th century by Louis XIV to shelter sick military, is also a paradigmatic example.

The matrix of the word hotel gives meaning to another typology: the hôtel particulier, which consists of a private mansion, an urban palace that sheltered a wealthy family. This is an aristocratic building which, since the 17th century, has often had a courtyard at the entrance and a garden behind the building, justifying the expression "entre cour et jardin" (GADY, 2011).

The mention of the hôtel particulier also helps to understand the association of the word hotel with the palace. For Mumford (1998, p. 410), the idea of a palace as a building to house the aristocracy descends from the Italian palazzo, which "means any magnificent building that can be occupied by a merchant lord or prince". In Italy, there are emblematic examples of urban palaces as well as villas, equivalent not only to a village but to an aristocratic country house in the 16th and 17th centuries.

As France was the main center for cultural influences in the 19th century, the word hotel came to be used in several other languages to designate the typology. In English, the word "hotel" was adopted in the 18th century³ and took precedence over the term inn.

This new French word proved popular and by the early nineteenth century, most inns had become hotels, fitting with a deeper historical pattern whereby one of the defining characteristics of the inn as a class of building is its continuous adaptation and reinvention (JAMES et al, 2017, p.5).

Thus, inns, which are still so common today in the names of hotels or hotel chains, have their origins in the Middle Ages and correspond to spaces intended to house and provide rest for people and horses. Inns had a significant connection with communication routes related to the movement of carriages until the advent of the railroad. The lodging establishments and the means of transport that enabled travel have been linked since their origins.

At the time of the transition in the use of nomenclatures, some hotels were renamed hotel-inn. The distinction between the inn and the hotel comes from this change in terminology and has obviously had repercussions on typological mutations. “The result is an apparent gulf across which the nineteenth-century hotel appears large, grand and urban while the eighteenth-century inn or tavern appears small, humble and rural” (JAMES et al, 2017, p. 5).

Daniel Maudlin (2017) argues that the changes from the inn to the hotel were more quantitative than qualitative since the program of the hotels, i.e. the rooms, meeting rooms, and services practically remained the same, but there was an increase in the size of the hotel. This growth was linked to the improvement and intensification of travel flows, especially in the second half of the 19th century, with the spread of the railways. Thus, the hotel in the 19th century made use of aspects of medieval cloisters, old inns, and the "hôtel particulier", which were synthesized or not in a palatial building (PAIVA, 2021).

Rural monasteries and urban convents, architectural typologies characterized by a group of cells around a courtyard, are archetypes not only of the hotel but also of a significant number of other architectural typologies (hospitals, sanatoriums, schools, prisons, etc.), due to the flexible aspect of their use, as well as other social conditions related to the historical practices carried out by the Catholic Church.

In the first half of the 20th century, there were simultaneous advances and setbacks in tourism flows, due to the two World Wars. Thus, there were signs of transitions during this period:

- between the period when travel was restricted to the wealthiest classes and the origin of masstourism for the salaried class. In the West, a milestone was the introduction of paid vacations by French Prime Minister Léon Blum, elected in 1936. This initiative, which spread to many parts of the world, allowed more people to travel. In the socialist bloc, this was an earlier provision:

In 1919, the world’s first ever ‘Workers’ State’ - the Soviet Union - nationalized what had hitherto been aristocratic bathing resorts for curative holidays on the Black Sea coast, claiming them for a modern public health service; then, in 1922, it guaranteed workers two weeks’ paid annual leave (BEYER; HAGEMANN; ZINGANEL, 2013, p. 37).

- between the persistence of the "Grand Hotel", which was born in the 19th century as arepresentation of modernity and the elite, and the emergence of the so-called "Tourist Hotels", which are exclusively for leisure and entertainment;

- between reminiscences of the formal and functional typology of traditional hotels and theemergence of new solutions to the demands of hospitality, lodging, and leisure. In this period, therefore, there was the coexistence of modernizing architectural trends and languages, represented by movements such as Art Deco, as well as proto-rationalism and the emerging Modern Movement, present in examples that are still isolated in the context of international architectural culture.

Thus, the hotel is not a completely new type of building. This assertion is interesting for understanding that the genesis of the hotel typology is remote and its genesis goes back to ancestral forms of hospitality that have remained or changed over time depending on social conditions. A new cycle of changes brought about by modernity and modernization, as well as the advent of the Modern Movement, contributed to spatial, functional, technical, and formal metamorphoses in hotel typology, concomitant with the increase in mass tourism.

THE SOCIAL PRACTICES OF MASS TOURISM

The post-World War II period, marked by reconstruction and a relative truce in the ongoing tension of the Cold War, favored a greater increase in travel, prompted by the expansion of civil commercial aviation and the widespread use of the automobile as a means of transport. These technologies were the result of the technical progress triggered by the world conflict.

Mass tourism emerged in the context of the primacy of industrialization and, as previously mentioned, of labor conquests, which accentuated the contrast between business time (production) and leisure time (consumption). For Urry (2001, p. 17) "tourism is a leisure activity, which presupposes its opposite, that is, regulated and organized work". Therefore, although in the logic of industrial production work time takes precedence, free time also feeds the reproduction of the capitalist mode of production, since "the laws of the (production) system never go on vacation" (BAUDRILLARD, 2008, p. 205). Furthermore, the consumption seen in leisure and tourism practices was a form of alienation and social distinction in industrial society.

However, the democratization of leisure and tourism is limited in most places,

(...) "Mass tourism" does not mean "tourism of the masses", for the simple reason that the masses do not do tourism. Mass tourism is a way of organizing tourism that involves the agency of the activity as well as the interconnection between agency, transport, and accommodation, in order to lower travel costs and consequently allow a large number of people to travel. (CRUZ, 2001, p. 6).

Even so, advances in the development of means of transport and the Welfare State have required the provision of various tourist and leisure infrastructures and the construction of various types of lodging. Added to this, there is the prominent role played by the state in promoting places and encouraging the expansion of tourism, which has greatly favored the actions of the market and a broad chain of production and services that tourism triggers, functioning as a "new motor industry" (VARGAS, 1996).

The role of the nation states was important in the context of the new geopolitics of the Cold War, both in the capitalist and socialist sides. In the West, the Marshall Plan played a crucial function in ratifying the United States of America as the central military, economic, political, and cultural power in the new post-war world order. In addition, the European countries sought to create the conditions, alone or as a bloc, to rebuild themselves. The action of the USA was imposed through financing, but also through the penetration of international companies in strategic places, including through hotel chains.

For Wharton (2001), the construction of Hilton hotels in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa was strategic in combating the ideology of socialism. The "Hilton's" were expressions of the power of capital and the "American way of life", as if they were a "little America". This geopolitical tactic is reinforced by Carbone (2002):

[...] hotels were, like the embassies, built with Marshal Plan credits and how the United States government actively encouraged Hiltons’s foreign endeavors. Hilton Hotels were, according to Wharton, the first large-scale building projects undertaken in many major cities after World War II and with them, American modernism and modernity were introduced into the social and architectural fabrics of their host countries. (CARBONE, 2002, p. 416).

On the socialist side, the state played a key role in establishing conditions for the enjoyment of free time and in providing leisure infrastructure, such as a kind of "social tourism", although travel was restricted to the limits of the socialist bloc's domain. Places like present-day Croatia, Bulgaria, and the former Yugoslavia were the target of major interventions. “After 1945, the newly emergent state socialist economies followed the Soviet historical example, making the provision of rest and relaxation for working people (and party cadres) an important component of their social policy agenda”. (BEYER, HAGEMANN; ZINGANEL, 2013, p. 40).

In both blocs, the role of the state is evident,

A commitment to rational planning and predominantly modern architecture was not a prerogative only of state socialist regimes, for examples of centrally planned large-scale tourism development schemes abound also in the capitalist West; yet the Eastern bloc was certainly better placed to give uncompromised expression to it, in the framework of a planned economy. Conversely, while Western Europe was purveying its own versions of ‘social tourism’, most state socialist countries were making allowance for private property, private holiday homes, private lets and (whatever the official line on the matter) also for ‘wild tourism’, as Christian Noack, in particular, has shown. (BEYER, HAGEMANN; ZINGANEL, 2013, p. 53).

However, there is also a version of "social tourism" in the capitalist bloc, through the promotion of vacation camps, condominiums, clubs, and recreational and leisure spaces by the state and workers' associations and unions.

A variety of landscapes (beaches, lakes, mountains, rivers, and historic towns) have gone from being natural and cultural resources to tourist attractions, seducing an ever-increasing number of visitors. As part of this process, the "sun, sand, and sea" form of tourism was consolidated due to the attractiveness of coastal areas in the context of modern maritime tourism. According to Dantas (2014), these are new forms of use and appropriation of the coast (therapeutic sea bathing, vacationing, and coastal tourism) triggered by the social transformations (economic, political, and symbolic) of modernity, as opposed to traditional maritime practices of historical origin (artisanal fishing, port, and maritime activities”. It should be noted that in many places these practices coexist, generating socio-spatial impacts and conflicts right up to the present day.

In the second half of the 20th century, the production and consumption of coastal areas intensified and they acquired the status of a privileged location for the enjoyment of leisure and mass tourism, resulting in various flows of residents, vacationers, and tourists and, as a consequence, a large displacement of capital and labor. Thus, leisure has come to permeate the life of society and spatial organization. According to Candilis (1973), three types of leisure practices occupy human life: 1) daily-urban leisure, 2) weekly-suburban leisure, and 3) seasonal-regional leisure.

In Europe, under democratic regimes or even dictatorships, the actions of the state and the market promoted the extensive and intensive occupation of the coastline, both in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic coast in the southern part of the continent, such as France, Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal.

It is important to highlight the major intervention in the Languedoc-Roussilon region on the Mediterranean coast of France. This was a major urbanization project called the "Urbanism Plan of Regional Interest" (PUIR), 1962-1964/1969) under the responsibility of the Architecture and Urbanism Agency, with Georges Candilis (1913-1995) directing the plan (LOBO, 2013). In Eastern Europe, the plans for the Adriatic and Aegean coasts stand out. In other continents, coastal uses have intensified and various destinations have been valued internationally and locally, such as the Caribbean, Mexico, and the United States, as well as Australia, with the development of the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast (MULLINS, 1991). Even in countries considered to be peripheral in South America, there has been a significant increase in various coastal locations, such as Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Viña Del Mar (Chile), Mar del Plata (Argentina), and Punta Del Este (Uruguay).

Regardless of the site, the practices of tourism and therapeutic baths - which date back to the 19th century - and the emergence of tourism were important drivers of coastal urbanization and tourism. Thus, not only lodging facilities but a set of infrastructures and urban and building structures were built to engender the expansion of mass tourism.

An important impact on architecture refers to the transformations seen in some architectural typologies that have more remote origins (hotels and inns) and the creation of new ones (airports, bus terminals, vacation camps, sports clubs, casinos, etc.). In this way, tourism and leisure practices demanded new programmatic requirements. These demands were part of a broader socio-spatial process related to the beginning of tourism urbanization, prompted by leisure and consumption, opposed to urbanization linked to industry, based on work and production (MULLINS, 1991).

It's interesting to note that in the context of the consolidation of mass tourism, driven by the internationalization of commercial aviation and the expansion of routes, there was a very strong link between airlines and hotel chains. As a result, hotel chains have become subsidiaries of airlines, facilitating the marketing of travel packages (transportation + lodging) and enabling the management and flow of flights and their crew, who use these lodging establishments⁴.

In general, modern hotels were built in the context of the social practices mentioned above. There is no intention of documenting the entire production of modern hotels in the context of mass tourism, but it is possible to recover the genesis and idiosyncrasies of the modern hotel and its mechanisms.

THE MECHANISMS OF THE MODERN HOTEL

According to Argan (1996), based on Quatremère de Quincy's definition, the type is an abstract and undefined concept that represents a common essence to a group of buildings which, in turn, express some formal and functional analogies justified by social demands.

To reinforce the understanding of the concept of type, it is important to consider the dialectical relationship between functional typologies, referring to the uses and destinations of buildings, and formal typologies, as the materialization of these uses.

Once materialized, forms are consciously appropriated and become transmitters of social content. Rossi (2001, p.80) sees the concept of type "as something permanent and complex, a logical statement that comes before form and constitutes it [...]. Type is the genuine idea of architecture; what is closest to its essence". From this perspective, the idea of archetype, understood as the origin, the principle, the permanent primordial reference in the type, is an important theoretical category for understanding the metamorphoses of architectural typologies.

As the Modern Movement established a tradition of rupture in relation to historicism, it gave up the study of typologies as a reference for design, as Argan (1996) points out. However, this denial was more present in the narrative of its representatives, since modern architecture ended up establishing counter-types, i.e. modernist architectural solutions inherited and renewed to respond to old and permanent social, programmatic, and also aesthetic demands. In addition, they placed significant value on the idea of the prototype, a concept linked to the processes of industrialization and standardization resulting from the industrialization of construction.

Architectural prototypes are essentially produced during the Modern Movement when design and construction methods take the mechanistic mode of industrial production as a reference and look for examples of repeatable and articulable machines (MONTANER, 2013, p. 97).

To sum up, the concepts of type, typology, and archetype, can be used to study the remote origins of the hotel, helping to understand the historical permanence of hotel typology. Counter-type, prototype, and new types can be used to understand the changes in the hotel type brought about by architectural modernism and mass tourism practices. All of them are together important interpretive keys for understanding the transformations that have taken place in the typology of lodging facilities.

Still, in the first half of the 20th century, some rationalist works for the solution of the hotel and the "Grand Hotel" are emblematic in the history of architecture: the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo (1922), by Frank Loyd Wright and demolished in 1967, and the project for the Grand Hotel Babylon (1923) in Nice, by Adolf Loos. In Germany, the Prora Colossus project (1936) on the island of Rugen, along the eastern Baltic coast, stands out.

Prora was designed to encompass a whole range of modern leisure facilities, procedures in which were to be optimized in the Taylorist manner and guests’ movements to be choreographed precisely. The resort was intended for 20,000 tourists and every room was to have a sea-view. The result was one single shorefront building of very shallow depth yet over 4.5 kilometers in length. (BEYER; HAGEMANN; ZINGANEL, 2013, p. 40).

In the period between the two wars, there was a certain move away from historicist attitudes in architectural culture, and aspects of a less erudite modernity were being incorporated into the architectural language of hotels, identified with proto-rationalist and Art Deco tendencies. In the aforementioned period, "the Modern Movement is marginally represented, but versions of 'modernity' are more characteristic of the high-rise hotels of Shanghai, New York, and Canada than of a few in Europe" (DENBY, 1998, p. 8).

The construction of a grand hotel as a sign of progress and modernity persisted from the 1940s to the 1950s, at the same time that the Modern Movement was establishing itself as the main expression of 20th-century architectural and technical culture. Therefore, even though architectural modernism wanted to move away from the idea of monumentality, some of the modern "Grand Hotels" still had a symbolic appeal characteristic of monuments, demonstrating that historical reminiscences remained in the hotel, even if the contributions of the avant-garde were incorporated.

Leão (1996) identifies the transformations of the modern hotel based on the thought and work of Le Corbusier. The author establishes links between modern hotels and the Immeuble Villas and the master's interest in the ocean line. These considerations reinforce the argument raised about the hybrid character of the modern hotel.

According to Leão (1996), the idea of collective life, present in Le Corbusier's manifests and some built projects, has its reference in the Carthusian Monastery in Galuzzo, visited by the architect in 1907. These influences are evident in the Immeuble Villas project of 1922. It is a new formula for housing in the metropolis, where "each apartment is, in fact, a small house with a garden, located at any height above a street"⁵. In these proposals, the internal courtyard prevails as a structuring element of the space.

At the beginning of his career, Le Corbusier established basic prototypes for housing, such as the Dom-Inó system (1914), the Monol House (1919), and the Citrohan House (1922). However, the Dom-Inó system, due to its abstract and undefined idea, can be considered both a prototype and a "modern type" that influenced a series of architectural typologies and culminated in the proposition of the five points for a new architecture (pilotis, free plan, free facade, long horizontal sliding window, and roof garden).

Many proposals derived from the independent structure scheme of the Dom-Inó system, such as the Cité de Refuge (1932-33) (Figure 01) and the Pavillon Suisse (1930-32) (Figure 02) had the essential function of lodging. These buildings constitute fundamental typological references for the configuration of the modern hotel.

Figure 1
Plan of Cité de Refuge, Paris, France, 1932. Le Corbusier.

Figure 2
Plans of Pavillon Suisse, Cité Internationale Universitaire, Paris, France, 1930, Le Corbusier.

Unlike the Immeuble Villas, which developed around the courtyard, these two projects consolidated the idea of the modular raised block as a modern contribution to various architectural typologies. The idea of modern "object-in-a-field" implantation, in which the building imposes itself loosely in the middle of the site, extinguishing the street-corridor configuration, contributed to the emergence of new arrangements for the solitary or composite modular block and the application of the five points.

The Unité d'habitation de Marseille (1945-1952)⁶, the most elaborate stage of the Dom-Inó system, is a significant reference to the hybrid nature of the architecture echoed in the hotel, namely: the quantitative and qualitative differentiation of housing units, the use of modular and repeated elements as prototypes; the emphasis on singular elements; the articulation of a multiplicity of uses and accesses; the contact between different users and openness to the urban environment, etc. It is also a building structure that ratifies the notion of collectivity that was present in the phalanstery and the ocean liner (MONTANER, 2001), bringing together some of the fragments of the city into a unique complex.

The ocean liner was a reference as a machine and as an essential industrial artifact used by Le Corbusier to promote the "new architecture" and a genuine tribute to modernity. The ocean liner (Figure 03) anticipates and reproduces the idea of the modern hotel, marked by its rigorous formal structure, rational and devoid of stylistic and ornamental concerns. “But our daring and masterly constructors of steamships produce palaces in comparison with which cathedrals are tiny things, and they throw them on to the sea” (LE CORBUSIER, 2014 [1923], p. 71).

Figure 3
Section of Paquebot Ile de France layout, Without place, 1936 - Notice in progress.

The hybrid character of an ocean liner is not only expressed in the diversity of uses and functions it has but also in the fusion of transportation and accommodation in a single modern mechanism, as in a finite reality. In Le Corbusier's words, "the steamship is the first stage in the realization of a world organized according to the new spirit" (LE CORBUSIER, 2014 [1923], p. 80). In both the hotel and the ocean liner, there is an interest in creating an idea of functional self-sufficiency, a machine.

Although the ocean liner was a floating bourgeois hotel, its hybrid character was also revealed in the different social classes it carried on its voyages, as well as all the apparatus of services and servants, equipment, and technologies to enable its existence and self-sufficiency, as a transport and lodging machine, similar to a hotel.

Although Le Corbusier didn't design any hotels⁷, he celebrated mass tourism and the hotel through the functional and aesthetic appreciation that exists in the design, form, and functionality of the ship, airplane, and automobile, essential mechanisms for mass tourism practices.

If, on the one hand, the Dom-Inó system (1914), Monol House (1919), and Citrohan House (1922) are prototypes that support the housing machine argument, on the other hand, the ideas for lodgings/hospitals, collective housing, and the ocean liner can be considered the prototypes of modern hotels, qualifying them as lodging machines.

It's important to note that in addition to the typological links between hotels and collective housing, there are also relations between the hotel and the hospital, which go back to the historical origins of both related to Christian cloisters (monasteries and convents) and which, in modern times, were manifested between the hotel and the sanatorium.

Sanatoriums emerged in the context of sanitary and hygienic policies and the valorization of certain places as beneficial for therapeutical and healing activities. Thus, there are common solutions used not only in sanatoriums but also in collective housing buildings and hotels, visible in the terraces and balconies that provided lighting, natural ventilation, and aeration of spaces, as a way of treating and cultivating the body and spirit. "The sanatorium model, but above all its individual or collective terrace, began to be inseparable from the different forms of collective housing dedicated to tourism, leisure, rest or therapy" (MORALES, 2013, p. 109).

Modern hotels have in common the rationalist principles characteristic of modernism, but there is a heterogeneity of variations due to the social conditions of each geographical and historical location and the position of the place in the flows of mass tourism. As the subject is too wide-ranging and exceeds the scope of this paper, the aim is to provide a general overview of aspects of formal/functional typologies to prove that the modern hotel is a lodging machine.

The mechanisms of the modern hotel are manifested mainly in the spatial and programmatic arrangement of the typical floor plan, which is made up of the hotel rooms.

The spatial configuration of the typical floor plan is conditioned by the articulation between vertical and horizontal circulation, which organizes the distribution of access to the hotel rooms and generally has the following configurations:

- linear corridors that serve one line of rooms: solutions adopted in projects where the location ofthe rooms seeks more privileged views or environmental comfort conditions;

- linear corridors that serve two lines of rooms: solutions that are more common in hotels locatedon valuable land and in more densely populated areas, where there is a greater demand for urban land use;

- corridors with complex shapes: in these cases, the horizontal circulations follow the designconcept, which can range from circulations facing a large internal atrium to solutions in which the hotel's floor plan is more complex.

The hotel suite, usually made up of a bedroom, vestibule, bathroom and sometimes a balcony or terrace, is an important mechanism in modern hotel design. This set makes up a genuine prototype in the building, as it is a module that establishes standards in terms of structure, construction, installations, equipment, and furniture, among other things. Hotel rooms are often grouped two by two and joined by bathroom shafts. There is greater variation in the layout of the rooms at the edges, at points of inflection in the typical floor plan, and in the connection of two room modules. (Figure 04).

Figure 4
Typical floor plan layout - one corridor for two sets of rooms. SAS Hotel, 1960, Copenhagen, Denmark, Arne Jacobsen.

This kind of modular coordination has a notable impact on the design, layout, and mass production of the furniture (Figure 05) and it is expressed in the shape of the building. The repetition of the modules of the hotel's room gives regularity and rhythm to the form, visible in the identification of the structures and fences, in individual or collective balconies and verandas.

Figure 5
Layout variations with the same furniture: SAS Hotel, 1960, Copenhagen, Denmark, Arne Jacobsen.

Another analogy that can be attributed to the hotel as a lodging machine refers to the technological advances in facilities and equipment. Since the 19th century hotels have been one of the first architectural types to use elevators, gas, electricity, telephones, and heating, among other amenities. In 20th-century hotels, technological sophistication increased and service areas gained in quantity and quality to enable them to function, such as the various services offered by the hotel and the flow of guests and employees, as well as supplies and goods.

The advent of concrete, steel, glass, and the elevator had repercussions on the development of technologies, which enabled new forms of use, and spatial and structural design, as well as echoing the language of the building. To cite an example, since the 1960s, many hotels have adopted exposed concrete as a formal expression, adhering to the brutalism trends in force.

It is possible to summarize that the universal values advocated by the Modern Movement prevail in modern hotels and that an adaptation to the reality of the place takes place through the integration of the arts, or the idea of a "total work of art", articulating architecture, interiors, fine arts, and landscaping in a rational way and with obvious analogies to the mechanisms of the logic of industrial production.

CONCLUSION

Vargas (2019) argues that consumption spaces, such as stores, malls, and even hotels, "were ostracized by the architectural elite linked to the modern movement and adept at the international style, just like their critics" (VARGAS, 2019, p. 1). This finding is very significant, as it alerts to the importance and need for theoretical and historiographical reviews in the field of the articulation between tourism, leisure, and architectural modernity, specifically about modern hotels.

The modern hotel is at the intersection between the past, the present and the future, since, as recent heritage sites, they end up being vulnerable. On the one hand, they are not old enough to be classified as objects of interest for safeguarding, and on the other, they are not current enough to meet the technological changes and the growing trend towards commodification and valorization of form demanded in contemporary architectural culture.

This way, a theoretical reflection about the typology (functional and formal) of hotels identifying ruptures and continuities concerning the transformations brought about by the contemporary practices of flexible tourism and tourism 4.0 (PAIVA, 2021) -, constitute relevant subsidies for their conservation, which demands sensitive design interventions capable of respecting the dignity of the materiality of modern hotels, whether in maintaining their use or even in cases of reuse.

Nowadays, digital technologies tend to interfere in the spatial configuration of hotels, in the automation and control of a "digital lodging machine", through virtual devices such as tablets, smartphones, or remote controls. However, it is important to claim that these technological changes are not against the maintenance and conservation of modern hotels, since they express the survival of historical reminiscences of the hotel typology in the context of mass tourism.

Finally, historical reviews and theoretical and critical approaches are urgently needed to systematize the production of knowledge about the modernization process through the bias of tourism and its dialectical relationship with the production of architecture, not just hotels, but various architectural typologies prompted by society's leisure practices and their tangible and intangible manifestations.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To CAPES, which awarded the Junior Visiting Professor Scholarship for post-doctoral research at the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon.

NOTES

• 1
  Pevsner (1976) refers in the 1950s to the Hilton Hotel (1953-1955) in Istanbul by Skidmore,Owings & Merrill and Sedad H. Eldem and in the 1960s to the SAS Royal Hotel (1960) in Copenhagen by Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971).
• 2
  The circumflex accent indicates the deletion of a Latin "s", which remained in hospitaliser,hospice, etc.
• 3
  "As for the use of the term "hotel" in English, the Oxford English Dictionary notes thefollowing three initial occurrences - Smollett in 1766; "the expense of living in a hotel is enormous"; 'R. King in Travels & Correspondence, 1776: 'his hotels'; and H. Arnot in History of Edimburg, 1783: 'In 1763, there was no such place as a hotel; the word in fact was not known, or only intelligible to French scholars" (PEVSNER, 1976, p. 172).
• 4
  Emblematic examples are the connection between TWA and the Hilton chain; Pan Am andIntecontinental Hotels, Air France and the Le Méridien chain (only since the 1970s), Swissair and Swissôtel (since the 1980s), American Airlines and American Hotels and Varig and Companhia Tropical de Hotéis, in Brazil.
• 5
  Le Corbusier Foundation
• 6
  According to Montaner (2001), Le Corbusier was influenced by the solution of theConstruction Committee (Stroikom) of the Economic Council of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR).
• 7
  Le Corbusier designed an Aménagement de Paquebot Ile de France (1936).

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Edited by

Editors in Charge

Alexandra Maria Oliveira

Alexandre Queiroz Pereira

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  23 Aug 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  09 Feb 2024
• Accepted
  01 Apr 2024
• Published
  10 May 2024