History and Design go hand in hand at the Lloyd Hotel and Cultural Embassy in Amsterdam

Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy

With its mix of guest rooms ranging from one star to five stars, The Lloyd Hotel is unlike any other. Inside the rooms might be grand pianos, beds long enough to fit seven to eight people, soundproofing fixtures strong enough for concerts, a bathtub and swing set up in the rafters or a gigantic kitchen. This place is filled to the brim with the playfulness typical of Dutch design.
There’s also a lot of interiors with movable parts, or you can just freely use any of the furniture in the corridor. Different from a regular hotel, the bathroom and toilet might be right in the middle of the room, or furnished in another such way to draw the eye. In these guest rooms you could bring in a room divider, take a shower right alongside your bed, or submerse yourself in the tub; they propose and allow an entirely different use of time and space than in our daily lives.

5-star room. Bath area is designed by MVRDV.

The Lloyd Hotel, located on Amsterdam Harbor’s eastern wharf, draws its name from the original owner of the building, the shipping company Lloyd.　Originally constructed as a hotel where emigrants to South America could have a physical examination and a few days’ rest, at that time as many as nine hundred people could stay at the hotel. After Royal Dutch Lloyd went bankrupt in 1935, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in WWII, the building was used to hold members of the underground resistance. After the war ended, it turned into a regular penitentiary, and later again a reformatory centre for youth. From the second half of the 1980s, it was put to use as studio space for artists.

Between 1989 and 1999, artists created work, lived and interacted there.
They took down the walls creating the melancholy and enclosed impression, and brought about a complete change with what came before: an open space and open atmosphere, in which a variety of people could come and go. The open-minded and creative spirit of the artists was taken over by Suzanne Oxenaar and Otto Nan, the founders of the current Lloyd Hotel and Cultural Embassy, and this can be seen all over the hotel in different forms.


When the building was being renovated for use as a hotel, what counted most was the concepts of “a release from the dark past” and “welcoming the sense of playfulness, bringing the space alive”. The Dutch architecture agency MVRDV made the central area of the hotel into a light and open atrium. Inside the building is the Cultural Embassy; which lives up to its name, always surrounded in works of contemporary art and design. For example: on the top floor, there is Suchan Kinoshita’s work, at the entrance to the restaurant and café, which are popular locally as well, the work “Lloyd Life” is on display, by the Amsterdam-based artist Chikako Watanabe. Moreover, in the upper reaches of the café, there is a library, and space provided for exhibitions and workshops, where visitors can walk around freely. At Lloyd Hotel and the Cultural Embassy, design and art have integrated to create an experience for all five senses, and its attitude and conception of remembering its history with respect is mesmerizing.

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Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy

Oostelijke Handelskade 34
1019 BN Amsterdam
The Netherlands
http://www.lloydhotel.com
t: +31205613636