LZF’s dazzling Koi and a brilliant kaleidoscope of colourful motifs greet guests and visitors as they enter the ground floor lobby of the new nhow Amsterdam RAI hotel. The latest venture from the nhow brand family (NH Hotel Group), the nhow Amsterdam RAI is an exuberant, multicoloured lifestyle hotel, set in the midst of Amsterdam’s otherwise staid Zuidas business district.

Designed by Dutch architect Reinier de Graaf, a partner at OMA (the renowned architectural firm founded by Rem Koolhaas), the 650–room nhow Amsterdam RAI is the largest hotel in the Benelux (as a point of interest, Benelux is a collective portmanteau for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, that originates from the 1940s).

Constructed from a trio of shifted triangular volumes, the 91–meter–tall nhow Amsterdam RAI hotel references a neighbouring triangular advertising column, known as ‘Het Signaal’. While the hotel’s exterior facade is made up of a straightforward combination of glass and aluminium, its interior is anything but straightforward. Instead, guests and visitors will find a superabundance of colour throughout, with references to many of the world’s unique cultures, including: Indian mandalas, Mexican ‘Día de Muertos’ (Day of the Dead) skulls, Chinese lanterns, and Japanese cherry blossoms. The hotel’s rooms are inspired by the six cardinal and ordinal directions to which its corners point: south, east, north, southwest, southeast and northwest. Themes from Amsterdam’s ‘Golden Age’ as a European commercial centre are also evident.

The nhow Amsterdam RAI hotel’s flamboyant aura gives its interiors an entirely bohemian feel. In what is, essentially, a business hotel, business travellers—many of whom will likely be visiting the nearby RAI Convention Centre—will experience a burst of energy and creativity. In the mundane humdrum of Amsterdam’s business district (arguably an affliction attributed to business districts across the world), the nhow Amsterdam RAI hotel is perhaps the perfect escape for those travellers wishing to enjoy something entirely different from the standard business hotel fare. 


Photos courtesy of Entree Magazine (except where otherwise noted).