21c Museum Hotels has opened its seventh property, the 21c Nashville, in a rehabbed historic building in the city.
The 124-room boutique hotel also has 10,500-square-feet of contemporary art exhibition space open free of charge to the public, and a restaurant, Gray & Dudley, helmed by Chef Levon Wallace.
New York-based architecture firm Deborah Berke Partners is behind the hotel’s design, which has contemporary art integrated throughout the public spaces, including the public restrooms which have mirrored tiles enveloping a video art installation.
In the restaurant, custom wood, blackened steel elements and copper and zinc accents are set off against deep, rich colors. Large metal windows and doors overlook the alley, which features an outdoor dining area with custom catenary lighting.
The hotel’s second floor has additional gallery space, with works featured throughout the extended corridor before branching off into separate rooms that double as meeting and event space.
First built in 1900, the building originally held a wholesale hardware company, the Gray & Dudley Hardware Co. The Chicago style building has large arched windows, an articulated masonry façade with terra cotta accents, and a prominent cornice at the roofline.
Commissioned by 21c Museum Hotels, multimedia works will be installed throughout the public and private spaces of the hotel, drawing on themes of technology, pop culture, and the environment. The series of site-specific works features electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Bilateral Time Slicer Intermix, 2017, which uses facial recognition software to record an image of each viewer who passes by a screen. The image is then cut in half and spliced with images of other visitors, in a kaleidoscope of hybrid portraits, which will also appear on screens in the public restrooms.
