Hotel Eden Rome. Meet the designers and artists behind its true Roman spirit.

A long process to choose the designers that would help us into the restoration of this great hotel. We were very mindful of the fact that this hotel had already a great following, had already many people that, you know, loved this place and we wanted to make sure that we respected its history and we wouldn't just transform and change the essence of what Hotel Eden was and had been for a long time. The two designers that had the sensibility, the elegance and really were able to interpret this place and everything that it was and we felt it had to be were Bruno Moinard and Claire Bataille which took care of all our rooms and public spaces. They had a wonderful approach, they came, they lived the city, they wandered around Rome, they took a lot of pictures and they were trying to understand the magic of the city so that they could kind of bring it into the hotel and replicate it into the hotel. And when they put forward their brief, we immediately fell in love. The codes, you just have to hang out and walk around for half an hour, a day in Rome and you have lots of drawings or lots of images in your head. In fact, especially because we are great travelers, we travel the planet and sometimes we don't have much time in places. And in fact, what guided us a little bit was to say to ourselves, what if there were only 24 hours, what if there were only 24 hours, what if the guests of this house stayed only 24 hours, we would like them to be able to have a memory, both diffuse and precise, of a very strong Roman impression. And so the idea of ​​a graphic floor as soon as you entered the lobby, it was obvious, to do something black and white that would catch the eye, to make marble details on the pilasters, on the walls, we didn't want to make it an ostentatious place, too bright, too loud, we just had to judge, dose the right proportions. And then these marble plates were going to be used to support the appliques, so they were going to serve as light. And then, still, we needed a ceiling, we are in a palace, we are not in Venice, we are in Rome. We had to make golden wood caissons and light them in a contemporary way, with LEDs, with plates, a little minimalist and modern, that would give, irrigate the whole ceiling with light. We work with a lot of artisans in general and with artists, and we were looking for a local artist, or not local, but Italian, someone who had a particular talent to be able to work. And when we saw Giovanni Brissana arrive, we said to ourselves, he is the man of the situation. And it worked right away. I was asked to reinterpret some of Bruno and Claire's ideas for the frescoes inside the lobby, the entrance, the foyer and the stairs. Each room had to represent what Rome was, so the colors of Rome, the sunset of Rome, the magical effects of the Lourdes that Rome has at a particular moment, which is the sunset. So we took inspiration from the decorations of Villa Borghese, we took inspiration from the magnificent sunsets on Villa Borghese in Rome, we took inspiration from walking among the streets of Rome, there are fantastic colors that can only be perceived at a certain time. We made them alive, we made them pictorial and we inserted them inside this wonderful frame here, which is the Hotel Ede. It was a wonderful journey, it was a very difficult journey, because the client's demand was of a very high level, but I think this collaboration was worth it and I also think it is one of the most beautiful hotels in Rome. And it's really done by hand and it was magic just watching him. So there's a lot of art into everything that you see. Even every day, even when I was doing the work, in the evening it took time, you went to visit Rome to take, to perceive what was the DNA and the magnificence of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And then to be able to transmit it, because the most difficult task in this hotel, in this work here, was to be able to transmit for the people who came from abroad that Lourdes and that magic that only Rome has. And you have to live it, Rome needs to live it, it needs to be interpreted. This is probably one of the most difficult tasks I've ever had, to interpret Rome, the magic, the historicity of Rome and to transmit it inside these walls here, inside this hotel. Patrick Joan and Sanjit Banku, of course, well the brief was different. We had restaurants and bars on the top floor and also they took care of our spa. And we wanted to have a place that was lively and attractive and give something different to the Romans as well. So we wanted to create an environment that was, of course, you know, super, super high level, but that had a more dynamic and fresher feel, but yet that had to, let's say, respect and kind of reflect the city and where we were. One of our personal dreams, because we both loved Italy, was when are we going to get to work in Rome? When are we going to get to work in Rome? It was on our list of our big dreams. And then so, when Chris and his team asked us, would you be interested in working on a project in Rome? You know, we were very, very happy. What we wanted to make sure that we did, was not go in and do a historical, quasi-historical project. We wanted to go into the future. We wanted to give Rome something that was resolutely modern and contemporary. Villa Medici is also, it's a beautiful place. And you can see from the bar, from the... And we wanted to have this echo with the foliage of the greens and to make it fresh. And so we took our inspiration from the garden and we covered the walls of the bar with pieces of leaves in glass. So the question was, how do we create a restaurant here with the view? Everyone wants the view, which is great. Which works amazing in the afternoon. But then what happens in the evening, because Rome is not very well lit, it's really, really faintly lit. At night, you have to make sure that nothing gets reflected in the glass. So this was a big challenge. How do you make a restaurant that is beautiful and warm in the afternoon, but then also fades away and almost becomes transparent and then allows you to see this view? So then you don't see just Rome, but you feel Rome. You feel Rome because you feel the breeze of the city that comes in. You feel maybe even a Vespa racing by. But Rome is inside. It basically is brought inside. Across its years and long life has been always an inspiration for the art world, in whatever declination art may be. And so we wanted to, let's say, pay tribute to that and continue in this. And that is why we really made sure that art was an essential part of our decor. We wanted to continue this legacy, and we started working with our own artist in residence, Andrea Ferrolla, who is a very well-known fashion illustrator. So it's bringing a bit now to today. It's not just art of the past, it's art of now. So he comes every now and then. He has his table in the bar or he sits around the hotel. And basically through his art, he's helping us tell a story and bring a story forward. What does it mean that I'm here? It means that I'm here to try and capture the spirit of the place. The genius of the hostel, to capture those moments, those situations that you see in places like this. It's a place where there's staff, service, dressed in very elegant uniforms. I'm a fashion illustrator, so I'm very impressed by how people dress, how they move. It's like a huge theatre, where the actors are the waiters, the bartender, the doorman. Everyone has their own precise uniform, their own gestures that I try to capture on the fly. Here, there are examples of putting on gloves, how to hold your glove, how to say hello by touching your hat. All kinds of movements that we no longer see in everyday life. Instead, in a hostel like this, you see them. They come from a historical tradition of luxury hostels. And it's beautiful to attend this kind of show in an atmosphere like this, with the view of one of the most beautiful places in the world in front of Rome, facing Rome. For an illustrator, being here at table number one, this is my second desk. I have my studio, and then I have this studio here. They bring you coffee, they bring you croissants, they bring you food. You can have lunch, you can drink, you can have an aperitif. And in the meantime, people change. The most beautiful show in the world. Every single member of staff that inhabits this hotel is from Rome, and oozes Rome. And it's true, we are all Italians, we are all from here, and we have that, and we cherish that, and we make sure that it's felt. And there's not many hotels in the world that have what we have. We are 100% Italians.