Palazzo Donizetti İstanbul, Tapestry Collection by Hilton / Guest Rooms and Corridors
We are pleased to share the artworks we created for the guest rooms and corridors of Palazzo Donizetti Istanbul. The hotel’s art program is built on the life and musical legacy of Giuseppe Donizetti and on the cultural memory of 19th century Istanbul. This work covers the part of that program that continues across the hotel’s floors. Here the concept takes the form of layered compositions, in which historical documents are broken into fragments and brought back together. Through these compositions, the story that begins in the public areas carries on all the way to the guest’s room. In this article, you will find the starting points of the series, how they took shape, and how they were adapted to the rooms and corridors of Palazzo Donizetti.
Room and Corridor Series | Between Memory and Space
The series are built on a dialogue with historical documents. Portraits of Donizetti, handwritten letters, pages of sheet music, images of opera houses, period photographs and architectural details of Istanbul’s facades formed the project’s visual archive. This archive was taken apart, and each piece became a fragment that could be read on its own. The fragments were then recomposed within frames, and together they took on a new unity. This idea of breaking apart and coming back together creates a narrative that, like memory itself, is incomplete, layered and constantly read anew.
Rooms Shaped Around a Portrait
In each guest room, the composition centers on a portrait of Donizetti, the shared focal point of every series. The works arranged around the portrait tell different sides of the same story. Musical notes and notation carry the traces of melody. Letters and correspondence form fragments of memory. Images from the cultural life of the period reflect the harmony of the past, and details drawn from archival documents carry the echoes of time. Several series with a similar structure were distributed evenly across the rooms. This way, each room gains a character of its own while the hotel’s overall visual identity stays intact.
Encounters with the Space
The room artworks were placed on focal walls above the bed, the writing desk and the seating areas, guided by the architectural layout and sightlines. The portrait in its white carved frame and the dark framed works around it sit naturally within the classic wall moldings of the rooms. In one of the series, a piano composition adds spatial depth with its three dimensional surface and wide mat, which cast shadows that shift with the light.
A Rhythm Along the Corridors
In the corridors, the same visual language becomes a rhythmic sequence. Interiors of opera houses, historical photographs, portraits, fragments of sheet music and torn edged archival pieces come together in groupings that combine black and pink frames. Repeated along the corridor, the series build a narrative that unfolds step by step as guests move through the space. The sequence offers more than an aesthetic experience. It also helps guests find their way and gives the corridors a distinct spatial identity.
Fragments That Form a Whole
Each grouping reads as an independent composition while connecting to the next, giving the concept a sense of continuity. The different frame types, proportions and colors let each composition keep its own character. At the same time, the shared visual language creates a seamless link between the rooms and the corridors.
From Archive to Wall
The series were produced using layered digital printing, wooden frames and a range of frame types, in a process that brought hundreds of pieces together. During installation, the corridor axes, wall proportions and sightlines were carefully measured, and each composition was set in place with laser alignment. Surrounded by dark navy wainscoting, warm sconce lighting and light toned walls, the artworks blend into the hotel’s historic atmosphere. The story that begins in the lobby reaches every guest’s room.
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ALAN Project
