Hotel L’Ermitage

The hotel occupies a lot between two historic buildings, conforming to its neighbours in height and volume but speaking a strikingly different language of forms. The building’s main eye-catching elements are its main entrance – set in a broken, “caved ­in” corner – and the overall vertical rhythm of the hotel’s windows and patinated copper cladding. The architect claims that inspiration was drawn, in a highly abstract manner, from the compilation of short films “Animatrix”: mainly, the idea that reality might be simulated. This is reflected in some optical distortions on the facade as well as in the general idea of a hotel as a dreamscape. In contrast with the building’s bold, solid main outer front, the side facing the courtyard is unexpectedly colourful. Inside, The very thin ceilings housing a built-in heating system was an innovation not used before in the Baltics.