February 4, 2008

Europe | Sweden | Stockholm

The New Northern Lights

By Mark Jolly

Stockholm’s hottest hotel room lets you customize your surroundings according to your mood.

view map

It takes some kurage to try to steal the crown of Stockholm’s fabled Grand Hotel. Though that appears to be the calling of Clarion Hotel Sign, billed as the biggest hotel in the Swedish capital. When it officially opens its doors tomorrow, the 558-room behemoth aims to flex its style as well as its size: Built by Sweden’s most famous architect, Gert Wingårdh, the interiors and furnishings showcase a Who’s Who of top Scandinavian designers — such as Alvar Aalto, Arne Jacobsen and Bruno Mathsson. In addition, the hotel can also claim a huge penthouse spa and the only Aquavit restaurant outside the U.S.

For bold, stylish statements, however, Clarion Sign has just been trumped by the new Room 602 (pictured) at Nordic Light Hotel. Conceived entirely in black and white, and in collaboration with Philips, the prototype room enables guests to custom-design their own light experience depending on their state of mind (through LED technology, you can, for example, choose blue for chill-out, red for energy, or all the colors of the rainbow if you’re on category-A drugs). The point? To create what they call “the ultimate hotel room” experience.