Pipe Dreams
In a public park near the German city of
Essen, on redeveloped industrial land about
30 miles east of the Dutch border, there is
a very unusual hotel. Conceived by Austrian
artist Andreas Strauss and implemented by
a team of administrators and web developers,
including Gunda Wiesner, Georg Brunader,
Olivia Schütz, Claudia Kogler, and Nikolaus
Diemannsberger, Dasparkhotel is a pay-what-you-want travel lodge with five rooms,
each built from a 20,000-pound section of
7-foot-diameter concrete drain pipe.
Each room has a raised plywood sleeping
platform topped with a foam double mattress,
which fills most of the pipe, along with a
cabinet full of fresh sheets and pillows. A
round skylight provides natural lighting during
the day, and a small bedside lamp allows for
nighttime reading. The curvature of the pipe
under the bed makes for a handy place to
store luggage, and the rear wall of each room
is decorated with a hand-painted mural.
Andreas Strauss
The rear of each pipe section is sealed,
and the front has a door with a pushbutton
code lock. Reservations, available from May
through October of each year, are made
online and confirmed with an email containing a code that will unlock the right door on
the reserved days. Staff appear on site only
to clean and turn the rooms, and collect
whatever payment travelers leave behind.
The rooms are wired with European-standard 220V power, and each provides
a single AC outlet for using and charging
personal electronics. There are no dedicated
toilets, showers, food vendors, or water
supplies, but all are readily available in the
surrounding public space.
—Sean Michael Ragan
» German Hospitality:
dasparkhotel.net
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