Room with a view

"Take part in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend the night in one of the worlds’ most distinguished museums.

From October 25 through January 6, guests can reserve an overnight stay in Revolving Hotel Room, a work of art created by artist Carsten Höller, at the Guggenheim Museum.

Revolving Hotel Room is an art installation comprising three outfitted, superimposed turning glass discs mounted onto a fourth disc that all turn harmoniously at a very slow speed. During the day the hotel room will be on view as part of the Guggenheim’s theanyspacewhatever exhibition, which runs from October 24, 2008–January 7, 2009.

At night, the art installation becomes an operative hotel room outfitted with luxury amenities. Offer is subject to availability. Rates do not include taxes, gratuities, or incidental charges. Stay may only include one night. Limit one night per person. A maximum of two people per night."

http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/exhibition_pages/anyspace/index_hotel.html

Kind of takes the more common art hotel and art in hotel models to a logical conclusion: hotel in art.

Our Place

"Nothing quite prepares you for the culture shock of Jay Walker's library. You exit the austere parlor of his New England home and pass through a hallway into the bibliographic equivalent of a Disney ride. Stuffed with landmark tomes and eye-grabbing historical objects—on the walls, on tables, standing on the floor—the room occupies about 3,600 square feet on three mazelike levels. Is that a Sputnik? (Yes.)"

We've started the merry dance of open homes again, but now I'm ruined. I want a library with the original Addams Family hand, a Raptor skeleton, Escher-like staircases and Sputnik.

"I said to the architect, 'Think of it as a theater, from a lighting and engineering standpoint,'" Walker says. "But it's not a performance space. It's an engagement space."

Judging by the photos the architect nailed it. So what's so different between this guys library and all of the new museum/gallery spaces that have been built in NZ over the last 10 years? At a quick guess I'd say the number of zeros after the dollar figure. Gotta love that US economy.

Full article at Wired.