Villatoro is a boutique hotel located in a historic Art Nouveau villa in Zgorzelec, right next to the border bridge. The Investors invited us there after the adaptation and revitalization works stopped and they wanted to resume the renovation and give this object a new life.
Our task was to create a design for the restaurant, the reception, and the hotel itself that would inscribe into the already existing functional arrangement and the already completed construction works.
The villa was built by a local entrepreneur from Görlitz, Karl Otton Straßburg, in the years 1890-1900. It has gained its historicizing decoration with Art Nouveau elements and details.
A number of them, including the wooden window frames, stained glass, or plaster molding, have been preserved till today. Therefore, the main goal of the whole project was to create a new quality, as well as to design the new elements that would not overwhelm the rest but make a coherent whole with the historic elements.
We designed elegant and cozy interiors, where new elements complement the older, historic ones. On the ground floor, white wainscoting and woodwork were contrasted with custom-made loges and intense colours of the chair backs. The references to the times when the place was built include the historicizing wallpaper in one of the rooms and the panels decorating the reception room.
A different style is visible in the first floor rooms, whose character is more contemporary, but also involves some historical allusions. The wainscoting, lamps, and details of the furniture make you think about the pre-war style, modernism, and Art Deco.
