Intimate and epic

The new boat in town has so many roles, so many partners, so much meaning, and so many functions - that no one seems to know what to say about it.

A boat-shaped hotel room has been left on top of the Southbank Centre, one of London’s biggest cultural venues. On top of the concrete building it is incredibly prominent for its size, and it’s become the most coveted hotel room in the country.

When tickets for A Room for London first went on sale, they sold out the first six months in 12 minutes.

 

A collaborative approach

The building has been designed in collaboration. The architect David Kohn and the artist Fiona Banner worked together on what Kohn says aims to combine the intimate and the epic. "The interiors feel comfortable and you know what to do there, but it's not just an easy or twee kind of comfort. You are connected to the Thames, to a wider world, also to what one thinks of the world. You have a relationship to disputed, uncertain territory."

But the critics are all over the place - with little agreement about what to say. Edwin Heathcote in the Financial Times likens it to the ships left on roofs by the Japanese Tsunami. Rowan Moore in the Guardian says “jaunty vessel seems to fall within the "fun" category of Thames projects.”

Whether it’s apocalyptic or jaunty, no critic will admit that it’s completely bizarre. And it’s been welcomed as an interesting project that will get people talking (and booking).

 

Art, architecture and a hotel room

It is both an art project (being sited on top of the Southbank Centre), an architecture project (it is part of Living Architecture, an organisation that provides great design as holiday houses) a tourist attraction (being the first part of the cultural Olympiad), referring to London, the Thames and the Congo all at once, as well as being a welcome addition to London’s tiny design hotel market.

The cabin has the name “Roi des Belges” or “King of the Belgians”, the name of the steamer Conrad himself captained up the Congo and that inspired his novel the Heart of Darkness. But despite the horrorshow references, it’s also charged out at £120 a night.

So when the new booking window opens on Thursday, your own correspondent will be frantically refreshing the website, looking for somewhere affordable and interesting to stay, whatever the connotations.