by STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM, The New York Times, March 19, 2013
A room for London
Photo: Charles Hosea
Source: www.aroomforlondon.co.uk
POP-UP STORES. Pop-up restaurants. Pop-up lounges. Shouldn’t this fascination with pop-ups — which are by definition ephemeral — have disappeared already?
Hotels offer compelling reasons for the trend to endure. Unlike temporary stores and lounges designed to hawk clothes and cocktails, temporary hotels allow travelers to sleep in unique spaces (boats, tricked-out shipping containers) and forbidden places (public parks, racetracks). The hotels also enable festivalgoers around the world to upgrade from sleeping bags and tents to rooms with beds, rain showers and iPod docking stations. (…)
A Room for London
This one-bedroom hotel (talk about exclusive) is actually a boat balanced atop the roof of Southbank Center, the London art complex onthe bank of the Thames. Inspired by the boat that the author Joseph Conrad navigated up the River Congo in the 19th century before writing “Heart of Darkness,” it has decks that offer views of London icons like Big Ben and St. Paul’s Cathedral.