A Game of Seduction

“Our goal has been to work within a classic building to create the NH Collection that is characterized by modern style within the hotel. The result is contemporary luxury. We have collaborated with top experts to ensure that the new design fits like a glove with the building’s spirit. It has also been important to not alter the lobby, staircase or common areas so that they appear as they were envisioned by architect J.F. van Hamersveld.”

Upon entering through its revolving wooden doorway, the NH Collection Amsterdam Doelen reveals refurbished Carrara marble floors and balusters in its halls. The wall fixtures and golden decoration –true to their 19^th century style– have been polished and chandeliers once again hang from the walls.

And it is here where we can imagine the Austrian empress, and where we find some references to current style, such as the impressive sphere-shaped lamps, made up of thousands of lightbulbs, starting from the ceiling of the fifth floor and travelling down the hotel’s staircase opening, finally landing in the entranceway, creating a link between past and present.

The chambers of Sissi –her mythical suite on the ground floor– maintains its ceiling of polychromatic wood, its high plinth and the impressive dark wood chimney. This area even maintains its original white and blue tiles. The weight of its history remains present.

In the other suites and rooms of the NH Collection Amsterdam Doelen, however, everything is crisp, pure and essential. The light that filters through the windows, the range of colours, from greys to off-whites, the honey-toned wood of the headboards and side furniture and the contrast of the white marble with the bronze, all creating a zen atmosphere. There is no excess. Peculiar details remain, such as the large baseboards lined with a red silk rope, making it more attractive, more elegant. The fine cotton, almost transparent curtains contrast with the rich metallic velvets found on the Art Deco-style armchairs. This perfect harmony is playfully disturbed with the red glass lamp or photographs that ironically reproduce the Delft tiles and that decorate the drinks cabinet.

The hotel’s bathrooms contain the Carrara marble found in the hallway walls and on the floors, with black and white tiling. These bathrooms include all of the exclusive “amenities” that are created especially for NH Collection based on top quality products, powerful professional hair dryers, showers with different types of jets–rain, active massage, …–. Spacious and comfortable, all of our showers include a modern Hansgrohe device that allows them to be turned on and off with a simple push of a button.

While the building’s proud architecture has been maintained –if not enriched– with mouldings and ceilings that transport us across time, a counterpoint has been created with modern lighting made by great 21^st century designers, including the IC lights designed by the much coveted Michael Anastassiades. These lamps are a modern reinterpretation of a glass globe with a brass arm. Or Gerhard Reichert and Michele De Lucchi –whose organic Logico Parete lamps provide light to the hotel hallways–.

Going up and down the monumental stairs of the hotel offers guests a chance to discover some 19^th century stained glass that fills what was once the watch tower of the ancient wall.

Let the NH Collection Amsterdam Doelen charm you with its harmonic and elegant synthesis of old and new, carefully picked out designs and fabrics and feel at ease in its exquisite atmosphere.