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The boutique hotel that opened up Paris
Mama Shelter
Starck's new Paris hotel stretches the Gay Quarter
He may not be gay but Philippe Starck has always appealed to the gay sensibility with his quirky designs, whether it's a stool shaped like a giant golden tooth, a lemon squeezer reminscent of something out of War of the Worlds or a Louis XIV chair in perspex. And his hotel designs have always drawn the gay cogniscenti: the Royalton in New York, St. Martin's in London and now Mama Shelter, a quirky new hotel in Paris's 20th arrondisement.
Set in an area previously of little interest to gay men or lesbians, to the east of the newly funkified area of Bastille, which is itself to the east of le Marais, probably the most beautiful gay quarter in the world, Mama Shelter - for such is the name of the new hotel - is an artwork in itself. With nothing so prosaic as a sign outside, inside there is certainly no shortage of things to read, mostly of a quirky if not downright misleading nature. On the ceiling by the bar, for instance, is the exhortation 'Let's trash the joint!' We're sure Mr. Starck and his managers would be on the blower to the gendarmes if you ever even attempted such a thing. At the reception, meanwhile, is scrawled 'Do you hire rooms by the hour?' Rest assured, they do not.
Littered around the hotel are recognisable Starck touches - plastic settees on the terrace, cabinets full of grandma's glass collection in the corridors, lights familiar from his other hotels if not from our own homes - but the effect of all this grafitti everywhere is something else altogether.
And it works. Beautifully. And if you hit the right package, for around £50 a night! A wonderful addition to a Paris that is getting funkier by the day. Explore the hotel website for yourself by clicking here.
