Vogue - Living | 1985

French designer Andrée Putman applies her special wizardry to a Manhattan hotel that caters to a discriminating, international clientele...

By Barbara Plumb

From Monte Carlo to Macao, tricontinental disco-hoppers are thronging Morgans, Manhattan's newest midtown hotel, owned by Steve Rubell and and totally renovated by the impÈratrice, of French design, AndrÈe Putman. To prepare for her first hotel assignment, she traveled around the world, staying at hundreds of hotels, making notes on what she liked and didn't. The glamorous yet understated design that resulted from her research leaves no detail neglected.

To give ceilings the illusion of greater height, Putman made the beds lower but dressed them up with such unexpected touches as down and feather duvets covered in grey and white pinstriped cotton shirting and headboards with the same covers that are changed with each guest. Every room comes with not only a radio but also a cassette player and a television monitor. Elegiacal black and white photos by artist Robert Mapplethorpe were specially commissioned to hang in every room. To enhance the spaciousness of the bathrooms, Putman chose stainless steel bar sinks for which she designed tubular steel frames. Poured floors of granite particles complement walls of black and white Japanese tiles. And rare it is, indeed, to find in a hotel such modern design classics as Eileen Gray tables and a Mario Fortuny lamp.