The Paramount Hotel in New York City is a building which commands the full attention – not only from the hotel guests who come to stay, but from anyone brave enough to take on redesigning the iconic interior spaces. One of the few hotels built by respected theatre architect Thomas Lamb in the 1920s, the Paramount has always been the height of hip, since the days when that word was still purely anatomical, through its evolution under the creative control of Studio 54 mastermind turned hotelier icon, Ian Schrager, to this newly-unveiled $40million incarnation that Meyer Davis Studio lavishly bestow upon us now.

With such a history and such a budget, there was plenty of pressure on Stonehill & Taylor Architects and Meyer Davis Studio to put in a critically-acclaimed performance; owners RFR holdings wanted a return to the glory days for the hotel, including its famous two-storey “living-room lobby”, and they should be enjoying rave reviews for the finished article. The guest rooms have been given a cool, minimalist makeover with all the techno mod-cons added, but the public spaces are where the attention is drawn thanks to the show-stopping re-imagination that lays on the glamour as thick as the greasepaint on Gloria Swanson. Set to be a long-running smash hit.

Photography, Jesse David Harris