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Hotel in Sofia - The hotel is situated in Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard, one of the city’s most prestigious streets. As with all of Lazzarini Pickering’s work, the project creates an attentive dialogue with the site, despite its innovative form.
The base, the only element finished in stone, ensures a continuous link with neighbouring buildings. The new façade that sits atop this plinth is characterised by a glazed surface interrupted by a metal grid defining the pattern of windows in the guestrooms. Fixed panes alternate with operable rectangular windows that provide fresh air, in alternative to the mechanical air conditioning system.
Formal experimentation comes with the creation of second internal façade. The configuration of this shifting surface changes in direct relationship to needs of the hotel’s guests. It is composed of a series of adjustable opaque panels that can be used to modulate and screen relationship between interior and exterior. In continuous movement, the panels are finished in a warm golden yellow, homage to the golden domes of Alexsander Nevsky Cathedral, whose image is reflected in the hotel’s transparent façade.
The final effect is that of a building with a consistently different appearance. Opening and closing the internal panels, reveals/conceals life inside the hotel and animates the opaque second façade. This effect is enhanced at night as guests turn on the lights in their rooms.
The upper storeys of the building are progressively carved out to give way for a lone steel structure that abandons any prismatic form as its transforms into a ziggurat. Here we find the suites, each with a private terrace, and the skybar.
Lazzarini Pickering Architetti was founded in Rome, Italy in 1982 by Claudio Lazzarini and Carl Pickering.
Born in Rome in 1953, Claudio Lazzarini graduated in architecture from the city’s “La Sapienza” University, where he studied with Ludovico Quaroni. Carl Pickering was born in 1960 in Sydney, Australia. He moved to Italy in 1980 where he completed his degree in architecture at the IUAV University of Venice, studying with Gino Valle, Massimo Scolari and Peter Eisenman.
The office has earned international recognition for its successes in various fields of design: from architecture to the renovation of historic buildings, from the design of restaurants and hotels to the fields of nautical design, industrial design, graphic design and branding. Lazzarini Pickering Architetti has received numerous awards, including the AR+D Prize, the Compasso d’Oro, the Gold Bundesrepublik Design Prize and the Millennium Design Award. The office boasts collaborations with such important clients as Fendi, Valentino, Montblanc, Lotus, Wally and Ferrero.
Lazzarini Pickering was present at the 9th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2004 with two projects: the Bad Dreikirchen Hotel in South Tyrol (Italian Pavilion) and the Villa in Positano (Cities on Water section).
Lazzarini Pickering Architetti has designed furnishings for Acierno ISL and Woodesign, including Isotropo (Honourable Mention Compasso d’Oro 1998). Their recent interior design for a Falcon Dassault jet marked their arrival in the aeronautical sector (2012).
The work of Lazzarini Pickering Architetti has been published in many prestigious international magazines.
Claudio Lazzarini and Carl Pickering have served as Visiting Professors at various international schools and professors with the “Ludovico Quaroni” Faculty of Architecture at the “La Sapienza” University of Rome. They have held conferences at important institutions, including the MAXXI - Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo and the Casa dell’Architettura, both in Rome.
