Innside Premium Hotel
Munich, Germany
Murphy/Jahn

Jahn Lykouria helps reinvent the business hotel as a place with style as well as efficient service

© Tom Vack

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

By Catherine Slessor

Travelers annoyed by the whimsical fripperies of boutique hotels or jaded by the bland anonymity of establishments aimed at a corporate clientele will relish the new Innside hotel in Munich. Nestling at the base of Munich’s two tallest towers, the Innside has the formal and material finesse associated with architect Helmut Jahn, but projects an edgier, hipper attitude, thanks to Jahn’s collaboration with the young, London-based designer Yorgo Lykouria. Here, at last, is a proper grown-up hotel that mixes the best aspects of boutique and business in a subtly blended cocktail.

Since the mid-1990s, the German chain Innside has acquired a reputation for comfortable, reliable executive hotels, with outlets in Bremen, Berlin, Dusseldorf, and Frankfurt, and plans to expand into Luxembourg. The company’s second Munich hotel in the evolving northern district of Parkstadt Schwabing forms part of a major commercial development designed by Murphy/Jahn. Strategically set within a half-hour drive to the airport, the complex combines the two office towers with an L-shaped hotel block. The hotel caters to the needs of the business traveler, with 202 guest rooms augmented by a restaurant, bar, fitness club, and a series of meeting/conference rooms. The interior design provided a chance for Jahn to work on a more intimate scale with Lykouria. Since the mid-’90s, the pair has worked together on a series of furniture and product designs, as well as the interiors of the Sony Centre in Berlin and the Deutsche Post Tower in Bonn.

From a set of fairly conventional requirements and a far-from-generous budget of 1.2 million euros ($1.4 million), Jahn Lykouria has conjured a set of contemporary, upscale interiors that treat the business traveler as a kind of savvy modern nomad, wired to the world but still craving privacy, intimacy, and luxury. The hotel and adjoining towers are situated on Mies van der Rohe Strasse, a nice bit of poetic justice, given Murphy/Jahn’s penchant for Teutonic sleekness and precision. The Innside’s crisply glazed facade would not disappoint the master, nor would the elegant and economical use of materials, animated by both natural and artificial light.

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Formal name of Project:
Innside Premium Hotel

Location:
Munich, Germany

Owner:
INN SIDE Hotels GmbH
Graf-Recke-Str. 5
D - 40239 Düsseldorf
Tel: +49(0)211 610178 - 0
Fax: +49(0)211 610178 - 99

Architect:
Murphy/Jahn,
35 East Wacker Drive, Suite 300
Chicago, IL, 60601
Tel: 001 312 427 7300
Fax: 001 312 332 0274
www.murphyjahn.com