The Fontenay Hotel in Hamburg

The Fontenay is a true city hotel. It opened in March 2018 and is located in the heart of Hamburg. The five-star hotel was designed by Hamburg architect Jan Störmer, whose firm Störmer Murphy and Partners, together with the Milan-based interior designer Matteo Thun, won an international competition for the hotel building in 2013.

The Fontenay reflects modern Hamburg and is a tribute to the Hanseatic city. The hotel offers 131 guest rooms and suites, two restaurants, a bar, an exclusive spa area and four event rooms of different sizes. 

The Hamburg entrepreneur Klaus-Michael Kühne has erected it with the aim of creating the best hotel in Germany. Luxury was planned and integrated down to the fine detail.

The best surfaces, top quality materials and perfect craftsmanship give the new Hamburg luxury hotel a magnificence that extends down to the flooring.

EXCEPTIONAL HOTEL, EXCEPTIONAL FLOORINGS

The innovative, sculptural design of the hotel, its organic architectural style comprising a multitude of sweeping curves required a great deal of interior customisation. A harmonious interior colour scheme uses light beige tones, green onyx walls, and warm white nuances as well as turquoise accents and royal blues mirroring the hotel’s natural surroundings. The elegant “terrazzo alla Veneziana” flooring in the public areas, and wooden flooring variants in the suites and restaurants were also specially designed and manufactured for the hotel.

The terrazzo flooring has been given a light beige tone with “Botticino” granulate and blends harmoniously into the prestigious ambience. It covers more than 1,500 m² of public spaces – including the stairs – and was installed in multiple steps using ULTRATOP EXTRA WHITE self-levelling mortar. The system proposed by Mapei includes PRIMER SN and ULTRATOP self-levelling topping mortar.

In combination with natural additives developed in the Mapei Research & Development laboratories and by roughing and polishing the surfaces, the floor-layers achieved a “terrazzo alla Veneziana” effect. In addition to the special aesthetic effect, ULTRATOP is characterized by its high mechanical strength.

The aesthetic effect impressed the clients and architects so much that they decided to cover parts of the luxurious Fonteney SPA world with the same floor type. Here, the “Terrazzo alla Veneziana” floor was produced using ULTRATOP and the “Bianco Cristallo” additive for a radiant white look.

A true one-off of exquisite beauty is the wood parquet from the Italian manufacturer Margaritelli laid in elaborate hexagon forms in the guest rooms. Custom designed for The Fontenay, the wooden flooring creates a wood structure that differs from traditional ones, adding a touch of elegance. An unusual detail is the oak originating from the forests of Fontenay Abbey in France.

The client’s requirements regarding sustainability resulted in the floor layers using certified Mapei products. The substrate was primed with ECO PRIM PU 1K TURBO one-component, quick drying, solvent-free, moisture curing polyurethane primer with very low emission of volatile organic compounds (VOC). ULTRABOND ECO S955 1K one-component, solvent-free, sililated polymer-based adhesive with a very low emission level of VOC was used to bond the wooden floors.