A Hybrid Hub Rises in a Dutch Design Capital

Date 04 February 2019

Perhaps best known internationally as the host city of Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven, a city in the southern Netherlands, will soon be welcoming the next creative wave when a new hybrid hospitality project opens its doors. Set in a former military barracks and adjoining industrial warehouse in the arty De Bergen district, Kazerne boasts eight luxury rooms and suites, as well as a 2,500-square-meter exhibition space, immersing guests in an environment where they eat, drink, meet, and sleep surrounded by recent work from leading and upcoming artists and designers.

This strengthening of the connection between design and hospitality was central to the concept of husband-and-wife team Annemoon Geurts & Koen Rijnbeek. Collaborating with the leading lights of the Dutch design world, as well as forward-thinking artists on the peripheries of the global establishment, Geurts and Rijnbeek created a museum-like platform within a high-end hotel setting. A rotating program of exhibitions contrasts with fixed design elements to create a dynamic aesthetic environment for guests and locals to mix and connect.

Geurts and Rijnbeek’s design studio Moon/en/co teamed up with Van Helmond Architecten to combine a complex of six brick heritage buildings into a single space that melds past and present. The rooms and suites range from the 15-square-meter Hidden Room, which is largely reserved for chefs- and artists-in-residence as part of the cultural program, to the spectacular 140-square-meter Penthouse Loft.

Located in the former stable attic, the Hay Loft features original wooden beams and boarding, as well as a charming hatch overlooking the courtyard, while the Senior Duplex Loft located in the former barracks features a unique historic-prison-cell-turned-pantry.

In dialogue with the art and design are two distinctive dining establishments. Forming part of the exhibition space, Bar/Bistro Kazerne is a lively, casual venue serving robust, vegetable-centric dishes with an Italian touch. The fine dining restaurant, helmed by the Swedish Head Chef Rasmus Olander, represents an intimate, Nordic-inflected, full-evening experience. Key to both concepts is the open-plan kitchen, which works to stimulate interaction and storytelling. Hotel guests also receive temporary membership to Kazerne’s Members Club, which includes use of the cozy, fireside living room on the first floor of the coach house. All in all, Kazerne offers guests a unique environment in which to experience, 24/7, how design adds value to the world in which we live.