Hotel Americano
518 West 27th Street
New York
Tel: 212.216.0000
Architect: Enrique Norten / TEN Arquitectos
Interiors: Arnaud Montigny/MCH

Given its small size and restrained, elegant architecture and interiors, the new Hotel Americano is generating an over-scaled amount of buzz. The 60-room hotel is sheathed in a scrim of industrial steel mesh hung six feet out from the windows lending it some mystery. Behind it, sleeping areas are discreetly separated from party spaces in a fairly ingenious way. Nightclubbers in the basement are whisked up to the rooftop public café and pool via a glass block elevator core on the exterior of the building, just behind the scrim. The elevator’s gliding volume within an illuminated tube (plus the lighting from the rooms) animate the shimmering façade. Inside, Norten’s no-nonsense architecture, and Montigny’s elegant interiors—with a black leather sofa, rope and steel side chairs, and a pair of gunmetal pendants like giant earrings in the lobby—are well tailored to each other. The dining room, with white marble topped tables and a pair of monumental chandeliers, overlooks a serene back garden. A floor that houses mechanical equipment separates public lobby areas from private rooms above, serving as a sound barrier. Floor to ceiling windows in the rooms offer enviable city views looking north directly from the platform beds. For privacy, there’s the mesh screen beyond.  “We wanted to create a bit of distance from the hustle of the city,” Norten said. “The scrim creates as an almost clear plane that gently filters the light.”