Garden in the desert

Biblical myths and fine art inspire the design for the Mondrian Hotel in Arizona

Setting foot in the Mondrian Hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz., is to set foot into Albrecht Dürer's engraving "Adam and Eve." The dramatic interior is a marriage of both seductive and reductive interior design, drawn from the inspiration of Dürer's 16th-century masterpiece. Motifs addressed in the artwork are incorporated throughout the boutique hotel, where color emotionally divides the space.

"The compound is a ranch in the desert that contains the Garden of Eden," says Mondrian designer Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz, principal of New York-based Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz Design (BNO Design). In the nearly all-white lobby, which Noriega-Ortiz commonly refers to as "the garden," lighting fixtures resemble clouds, suspended from the ceiling by transparent wire. A stuffed-animal-like figurine, coined by Noriega-Ortiz as a "lamb of innocence," casually stands beside a series of tall porticos, where thin window draperies are clinched on each side by a pair of holdbacks. The resulting spaces between the curtains serve as peepholes to an adjacent room, saturated in shades of pink. "All the elements in this garden are pure and nude in color. A row of naked ladies holding light emphasizes the wholesomeness of the space," explains Noriega-Ortiz, referencing a line of voluptuous lamp bases that are repeated throughout the reception area. Also within the lobby, coffee-colored hardwood flooring, contemporary benches and chairs wrapped in milky-white cushioning help fill the space.

Stark white in color, a lone baobab tree looms at the far end of the monochromatic lobby, paying homage to the age-old religious anecdote Noriega-Ortiz has chosen as the centerpiece of the hotel. Every element in the room imparts sterility, functioning to narrate a larger story of competing themes: temptation and purity.

A direct contrast to the foyer is the boutique hotel's "Red Bar," which is drenched in shades of scarlet. The bar beckons the desert oasis' resident nightlife and fashion-forward patrons. It's "a temptation bar, full of apples in the center and mischievous cherubs engaging in fun activities with the ceiling hardware," Noriega-Ortiz says.

In addition, the hotel houses a symbol-laden second bar, "Sky Bar," furnished with canopies and allusions to the "fallen angel." An Asian-Latino fusion restaurant, Asia de Cuba, can also be found in the Mondrian. Guest rooms dressed in black and white, a testament to the struggle between good and evil, provide the most literal translation of Noriega-Ortiz's biblical analogy, where, he says: "one single red delicious apple waits for you in a red box — tempting you to bed."

PHOTO (COLOR)

By Angela Malta

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