Hotel Marcel – brutalist monument restored by Becker + Becker
Marcel Breuer's Iconic Building Gets New Life as a Connecticut Hotel
In the American The Marcel Hotel opens in New Haven, Connecticut. It is housed in a Brutalist building designed by the architect Marcel Breuer(Marcel Breuer) in 1967. Three years ago, architecture firm Becker + Becker bought the site and refurbished the interiors of the listed building, transforming a derelict office building into a design hotel with 165 hotel rooms, a restaurant, a gallery and a conference room.
Named after Marcel Breuer, the hotel has become a model for “sustainable hospitality” that aims to be the first “passive house” certified hotel in the United States.
For the exterior, the architects have kept the original façade design while refurbishing it there where it was needed, without compromising its form and expressive brutalist relief. Marcel Breuer originally conceived the building as two rectangular volumes, between which an expressive void gaped.
1/2Photo: Becker + Becker
Together with architects Becker + Becker, Dutch East Design helped improve the interiors. They aimed for an atmosphere of elegant minimalism—with wood trim, light-colored walls, and muted ornaments.
The hotel implemented the concept of a “passive house”: the architects equipped the building with more than 1,000 solar panels that fully provide lighting, heating and cooling functions. In addition, the project used recycled and local building materials, high-performance thermal insulation, LED lamps, and installed an electric vehicle charging station in the parking lot. >
Concrete columns and pillars support the void between the building blocks.