I love the power of color. It possesses strong associative properties. Fire engine red. Kelly Green. Robins-egg blue. Now color has come to hospitality. The Pantone Hotel opened this month in Brussels, Belgium, using its mood-setting hues to shape and define spaces. It’s another step in Pantone’s expansion beyond its core business of color matching and consulting to licensing projects, such as the Gap pop-up store.
Designed by Michel Penneman and Oliver Hannaert, the new hotel, located in the city center, features mostly white rooms and meeting spaces inspired by its color chips, sparingly accenting them in various ways. There’s also a rooftop Pantone Lounge, offering drinks such as Pink Champagne 12-1107, Lemon Drop 12-0736 or the Daiquiri Green 12-0435, as well as on-site “Color Consultants” service by appointment only.
This was bound to happen. I’m not so sure I could stomach an entire space devoted to PMS colors. Imagine an entire hotel devoted to Nike products. A shrine to Nike. Too coordinated, synergistic, salesy. It would verge on the offensive. The Pantone Hotel seems less so because we don’t normally see Pantone chips as products. But afer awhile I imagine this will get tired. I do applaud the innovativeness, brand extension, and media hype this will generate, well at least in the design trade. May this never be taken over by Best Western.
