Adjusting the contrast at Ames
Hotel playfully blends the old and new
In the foyer of Ames, the new boutique hotel downtown, hangs a glittering and very modern installation. Called “Mirror Chandelier,’’ it looks a bit like a quivering spring branch, its darling buds made of 15,000 mylar discs. The piece was designed for the space by a London-based art collective called Studio Roso but assembled on-site, so as to save the building’s 19th-century barrel-vaulted mosaic.
This dramatic, and often entertaining, contrast between old and new was what architect David Rockwell had in mind as he embarked on the Ames, a collaboration with the Morgans Hotel Group.
“You always want to find unique DNA for a project,’’ said Rockwell, whose projects have included everything from the JetBlue terminal at New York’s Kennedy Airport to the interiors of famed restaurant Nobu to the gloriously reimagined sets for last year’s Oscars.
For Ames, he’s taken a Romanesque masonry building, located in the historic heart of the city, at 1 Court St., and in corporated new, fresh, modern elements “so they play off each other.’’
And play they do.
So beneath, say, a chic, feathered drumshade light is an elliptical marble table, supported by a thicket of old-fashioned turned legs. In the hotel’s suites, peek-a-boo glass showers can be curtained off with, what Rockwell calls, “an almost Victorian white sheer.’’ And in the light-bathed stairwell of Woodward, the hotel’s modern-day tavern, shelf after shelf of historical oddities and artistic vignettes create a so-called “Cabinet of Curiosity,’’ tying the two floors together and drawing customers through the space. (Many of the vignettes were created by Jamaica Plain artist Sally Moore.)
Of course, some of the curios are found in the rooms themselves. A sinuous chaise lounge in one suite was found online at Firstdibs.com and re-covered. A bright white credenza, studded with dozens of drawer pulls, isn’t a piece you’re going to see every day. Cheeky souvenir plates, hung tastefully, add a dash of humor. Rockwell loathes anything generic, as does the Morgans Hotel Group, and it shows.
“The subtle designer pieces, the nuanced pieces,’’ said Mari Balestrazzi, senior vice president of Morgans Hotel Group’s design team, “honestly, it’s what makes us stand apart.’’
HAYLEY KAUFMAN 
