Amsterdam’s Pulitzer hotel is one of the Dutch city’s most unique properties – straddling two canals and spanning the Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht canals, the hotel comprises 25 historic houses, each built between Amsterdam’s golden 17th and 18th centuries and with a unique history and original purpose (the room I stayed in was housed in a former canalside brewery on the Prinsengracht side). First founded by Peter Pulitzer – grandson of newspaper titan Joseph Pulitzer, creator of the famed publishing prize – who bought the then-dilapidated collection of houses in the 1970s, the space was redesigned in 2016 by Jacu Strauss, creative director of the Lore Group which now owns the hotel.
That design, which relies on liberated use of colour, as well as playful nods to the city’s history – the reception desk, for example, is entirely adorned with blue-and-white Delft tiles – largely centres around a courtyard from which one can view the amalgam of architectural styles that make up the Pulitzer. This past November weekend, that courtyard was transformed with a vast new centrepiece – a pink tulle-covered Christmas tree designed by Roksanda, the eponymous London-based brand of designer Roksanda Ilinčić, known for its sculptural, colour-soaked designs which often find inspiration from contemporary artists and creative movements.
