GKA-designed Hotel Indigo begins construction

Hotel Indigo, a brand of the InterContinental Hotels Group, has begun construction at 8-12 Maiden Ln. in the Financial District. The 90,000 s/f structure, designed by Gene Kaufman Architect (GKA), has 24 stories and 190 rooms as well as a ground-floor restaurant and a rooftop bar. The hotel's design is a mix of old and new. The façade combines old-school masonry, for the bottom third, with modern glass, for the upper stories. The interiors, which GKA also designed, use muslin and other fabrics that call to mind Maiden Ln.'s history as a place where 19th-century young women came to wash their clothes. A 19th-century-style curiosity, or wonder, cabinet in a small lounge off the lobby also recalls the area's past. In an allusion to the area's current role as the center of international finance, with that world's emphasis on time and its connection to wealth-building, the 240-ft.-high upper section of the façade does double-duty as both the building's face and as a clock, with each floor representing an hour. As the day progresses, the floors light up successively until, at midnight, the entire upper section is sheathed in light, which is then extinguished as the process begins anew. Said principal Gene Kaufman, "Our goal in designing both the exterior and the interior of the Hotel Indigo was to craft a unique environment redolent of the area's vitality, past and present."