Project Story: Collaborations with artists on Hotel Lone
The collaboration between 3LHD and artists and designers on the Hotel Lone project stemmed from a desire to create a comprehensive architectural experience, drawing on historical models and promoting Croatian creativity.
Above all, we wanted to achieve a distinctive identity for Hotel Lone. We believed that by carefully selecting and integrating the works of renowned Croatian creatives from various fields – such as conceptual art, product design, fashion, and graphic design – we could create a unique visual and experiential signature for the hotel.
Our conceptual assumptions in designing Hotel Lone were rooted in deep respect for the achievements of hotel architecture along the Adriatic coast in the past century, especially the 1970s, when collaborations between architects and artists were common. 3LHD drew direct inspiration from this tradition, in which artists such as Murtić, Picelj, and Goldoni enriched hotel spaces with their interventions. We were also inspired by the nearby Hotel Eden in organizing the layout. Our aim was to reconcile the typology of Croatian hotels from the seventies with modern design.
The seventies were a period when top Croatian architects collaborated with the best Croatian artists. In a way, Lone is a kind of reinterpretation of that entire process, with an emphasis on a contemporary approach expressed through material and function, and only then through form.
Our working methodology generally includes involving creatives from other disciplines to enhance the final product. Most of our projects (the Memorial Bridge in Rijeka, the Croatian pavilions at EXPO in Japan/Spain, the Riva in Split, the Zamet Centre, the Zagreb Dance Centre...) include a large number of creative collaborators – people from different professions, fields, and affinities. Lone was not a case of art being added to the interior as an afterthought, but rather of integrating artists into the design process from its earliest stages.
Numen / For Use, a group of product designers responsible for most of the mass-produced and custom-made furniture pieces for the hotel, was involved in the interior design phases from the very beginning. Fashion designers I-GLE were in charge of selecting the hotel’s fabrics and textiles, and were later commissioned by the investor to design the hotel staff uniforms. I-GLE are also the authors of three textile art installations in the hotel lobby. In addition to them, two other artists participated in the project – Ivana Franke, author of the hanging sculpture in the lobby titled Room for Running Ghosts, and Silvio Vujičić, author of the installation In the Hanging Garden No One Speaks – a green wall, a kind of bio-mechanism with living plants and a self-sustaining irrigation system. Silvio is also the author of a series of textile prints featured in all the rooms, based on research of frescoes from 14th and 15th-century Istrian churches, inspired by the clothing ornaments of martyrs. Studio92 is credited with the design of the Wellness & Spa centre, while Studio Kappo was responsible for landscape design. The agency Bruketa & Žinić OM conceived and oversaw the hotel’s visual identity.
This collaborative approach aimed to revive the tradition of art as an integral part of the hotel – where artworks are created specifically for the space, not merely hung on walls. The goal was to create an atmosphere of pleasant luxury, offering guests a unique experience – a "new/different reality" compared to their everyday life. Finally, this collaboration also represented an exceptional opportunity to promote Croatian creativity, especially considering that all the participating architects, designers, and artists were already internationally recognized. The idea was to present Hotel Lone as an “incubator of creativity in Southeast Europe".
