'The Hotel de Luxe': the architectural and social significance of the 'grand hotel' in London 1860-1910
<p>The London grand hotel or hotel de luxe was a new building type, designed to provide luxury for a changing society. These venues were located at the intersection of public and private, and composed of a series of potentially contradictory characteristics. They combined an idealised past wit...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2019
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| _version_ | 1797077759848087552 |
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| author | Anderson, Emma |
| author2 | Whyte, W |
| author_facet | Whyte, W Anderson, Emma |
| author_sort | Anderson, Emma |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>The London grand hotel or hotel de luxe was a new building type, designed to provide luxury for a changing society. These venues were located at the intersection of public and private, and composed of a series of potentially contradictory characteristics. They combined an idealised past with the excitement of the future. They promised an experience of consumption rooted in traditional status which was also innovative. ‘Modern’ in terms of up-to-date technology, they also exhibited the modernity of shifting hierarchies and identities in an urbanised, industrialised society. Their desirability was associated with the excitement of the foreign, but also with their practical role as a convenient base . Monuments to wealth and fashion which constantly adapted, grand hotels both responded to and reshaped identity and social culture.</p>
<p>Luxury is complex and elusive, defined according to place, time and person. Chapter I sets this thesis in the context of other examinations of the concept, its inherent duality as economic fact and medium to communicate social relationships, and its connection to the production of space. It argues for a set of characteristics of luxury around which the thesis is structured. Chapter II: Grandeur examines the hotels’ physical reality, size and status. Chapter III: Magic considers the representational encounter, promoted through a narrative of magical transformation. Chapter IV: Exclusivity examines the tensions between this crucial aspect of luxury and the need to attract clients, balanced via tangible and intangible thresholds of plan, design, and staff performance. Chapter V: Cosmopolitanism considers the attractions of foreign cultures, visible in the public-facing staff and in the gastro-cosmopolitanism of restaurants. Chapter VI: Comfort addresses the influence of changing ideas of physical and social comfort on public and guest rooms, and the new, private bathroom. Chapter VIII: Modernity examines the hidden production systems of luxury, and the social modernity on display in palm courts, where men and women could enjoy novel experiences in a new interior. Combined, these characteristics created the grand hotel.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T00:22:36Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:7d0fcd65-6845-4b22-a2e7-68132836cb19 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T00:22:36Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:7d0fcd65-6845-4b22-a2e7-68132836cb192022-03-26T21:01:03Z'The Hotel de Luxe': the architectural and social significance of the 'grand hotel' in London 1860-1910Thesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:7d0fcd65-6845-4b22-a2e7-68132836cb19EnglishORA Deposit2019Anderson, EmmaWhyte, WMahony, CSparke, P<p>The London grand hotel or hotel de luxe was a new building type, designed to provide luxury for a changing society. These venues were located at the intersection of public and private, and composed of a series of potentially contradictory characteristics. They combined an idealised past with the excitement of the future. They promised an experience of consumption rooted in traditional status which was also innovative. ‘Modern’ in terms of up-to-date technology, they also exhibited the modernity of shifting hierarchies and identities in an urbanised, industrialised society. Their desirability was associated with the excitement of the foreign, but also with their practical role as a convenient base . Monuments to wealth and fashion which constantly adapted, grand hotels both responded to and reshaped identity and social culture.</p> <p>Luxury is complex and elusive, defined according to place, time and person. Chapter I sets this thesis in the context of other examinations of the concept, its inherent duality as economic fact and medium to communicate social relationships, and its connection to the production of space. It argues for a set of characteristics of luxury around which the thesis is structured. Chapter II: Grandeur examines the hotels’ physical reality, size and status. Chapter III: Magic considers the representational encounter, promoted through a narrative of magical transformation. Chapter IV: Exclusivity examines the tensions between this crucial aspect of luxury and the need to attract clients, balanced via tangible and intangible thresholds of plan, design, and staff performance. Chapter V: Cosmopolitanism considers the attractions of foreign cultures, visible in the public-facing staff and in the gastro-cosmopolitanism of restaurants. Chapter VI: Comfort addresses the influence of changing ideas of physical and social comfort on public and guest rooms, and the new, private bathroom. Chapter VIII: Modernity examines the hidden production systems of luxury, and the social modernity on display in palm courts, where men and women could enjoy novel experiences in a new interior. Combined, these characteristics created the grand hotel.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Anderson, Emma 'The Hotel de Luxe': the architectural and social significance of the 'grand hotel' in London 1860-1910 |
| title | 'The Hotel de Luxe': the architectural and social significance of the 'grand hotel' in London 1860-1910 |
| title_full | 'The Hotel de Luxe': the architectural and social significance of the 'grand hotel' in London 1860-1910 |
| title_fullStr | 'The Hotel de Luxe': the architectural and social significance of the 'grand hotel' in London 1860-1910 |
| title_full_unstemmed | 'The Hotel de Luxe': the architectural and social significance of the 'grand hotel' in London 1860-1910 |
| title_short | 'The Hotel de Luxe': the architectural and social significance of the 'grand hotel' in London 1860-1910 |
| title_sort | the hotel de luxe the architectural and social significance of the grand hotel in london 1860 1910 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT andersonemma thehoteldeluxethearchitecturalandsocialsignificanceofthegrandhotelinlondon18601910 |