Save the Beach
Every city has a selection of hotels that their detractors would describe as “rubbish.” But only Rome has a hotel that’s literally rubbish. There, in the center of the city near the Castel Sant Angelo, is the Corona Save The Beach Hotel. It is the world’s first to be made of garbage.
As the hotel’s name implies, all of the rubbish used to make this two-story, five-room building came from beaches in Europe. Old toys, rusted hubcaps, mangled musical instruments, cardboard boxes, torn trousers, crushed cans, old tires and even mannequin limbs are among the 12,000 kg (more than 13 tons) of trash that was used in the construction. Practically the only objects in or of the hotel that weren’t found on a beach are the floorboards, support beams and sleeping sheets.
The Corona Save The Beach Hotel is more about conveying an artistic statement about the state of beaches in Europe than it is about providing accommodations. Indeed, the hotel is scheduled to close on June 7th, shortly after it opened. Every room for every night has already been booked. Supermodel Helena Christensen was the first visitor. We like to imagine that among the other guests was at least one husband who promised his wife a “dirty night in bed.”
In case you are wondering: All the trash used to make the Corona Save The Beach Hotel was disinfected and does not smell of garbage. Though that is pretty much the only luxury, if you can call it that—the hotel does not have running water or electricity.
This 63 year old German artist is the designer of the “Corona Save the Beach Hotel”. Since 1969 the artist of “trash” Ha Shult has surprised the world with his installations based on the waste produced by our society. Born in Parchim, Mecklenburg on June 24, 1939, Schult knew very early on that he wanted to become an artist. “The period of childhood around five or six is the most influential time for most artists,” he says. “When I was six years old, my parents arranged for an art teacher because I was already a wonderful painter, and from this moment on I began to be an artist.” Growing up in Germany after World War II has always influenced his work. “I saw Berlin when it had died. I saw the first black and white movies from the U.S. and I saw all the people returning from the war in Eastern Europe. Maybe the dialogue between reality and life in my work comes from this time,” he says.
