Works of art: Aesthetic Ambitions in Design Hotels

This paper analyzes a genre of hotels that has grown substantially the latest decades: namely one that includes hotels that go under names such as design hotels, boutique hotels, or “contemporary” hotels. It presents elements of the transnational discourse of this genre and shows how these are translated, materialized and localized. Individual hotels are used as illustrative examples of how discursively formed visions and ambitions are materialized and how identity claims are aesthetically communicated. The paper demonstrates how artifacts, employees and visitors are regarded as key components in an aesthetic communication with clear references to the transnational discourse. By focusing on discursive practices and their materialization in hotels, the paper describes and theorizes the way hotels seek to discursively conceptualize themselves as individual establishments that belong to the transnational hotel genre. The paper ends with a discussion of how the hotels, through their aesthetic communication, mobilize a conformist transnational identity discourse advocating singularity and uniqueness.

► Interprets “design hotels” or “boutique hotels” as a genre.
► Scrutinizes aesthetic communication and artistic ambitions in the genre.
► Shows that the genre is infused by a standardized transnational discourse.
► Presents key elements of the transnational discourse of the genre.
► Analyze show the transnational discourse advocates singularity and uniqueness.