This past February, Generator Hostels opened a new location in Parisnear the Gare du Nord train station. The string of hostel locations in Europe are all designed in the fashion of repurposing the existing architecture. As the story goes, the Paris location was once a pair of ramshackle 1980s insurance office buildings before it was converted to a 920-bed hostel complete with a rooftop bar, a club with a dance floor, and the appropriately named Fabien Café — the hostel is located at 9-11 Place du Colonel Fabien in the 10th arrondissement.
Top: The new hostel in Paris. Bottom: Shared all-women room. Photos via Generator Hostels
There are many other luxe hostels across Europe that, like Generator, are designed to repurpose an existing and often dilapidated structure. With that in mind, we compiled a collection of five hostels — no minibars or room service here — in Europe that started out as something else.
Generator Hostel Barcelona by The Design Agency
In addition to the Paris location, there are seven other similarly designed locations in Hamburg, Copenhagen, Dublin, Berlin Mitte, Berlin Prenzlauer Berg, London, and Venice. In the 1960s, the 73,000-square-foot Barcelona location was the office space and headquarters of Spanish National Gas. The combined hotel and hostel consists of 720 beds arranged in both hostel-style share rooms and private luxe hotel suites. The design of the lobby acknowledges Barcelona’s nautical history with the recreation of a ship’s hull (the lower, hollow portion of a ship).
© MATTHIAS-C.A S-HERZOG
© MATTHIAS-C.A S-HERZOG
© MATTHIAS-C.A S-HERZOG
Vandrerhjemmet by Skibnes Arkitekter AS
An old hostel, Trondheim Vandrerhjem, had to be torn down due to its dilapidated condition. A clever solution was erected in its place: Vandrerhjemmet serves flexible mixed-use student housing during the school year and a hostel service in the summer. Directly accessible from the walkway galleries, the student housing units are organized as shared spaces for three occupants with common kitchens, bathrooms, and living space.
Boutique Hostel Forum by STUDIO UP
Located between St. Anastasia’s Cathedral and the Archeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia, the building is formerly Croatian architect and city planner Bruno Milić’s 1964 office space and housing complex. It has since been converted into 37 rooms with 111 beds. Existing spatial limitations were transformed using new drywall geometries, color raters, rhythmic patterned ceramic tiles, glossy varnishes, acrylic reflective boards, and tilted mirrors — all in mind with creating a relationship between the new design and the building’s past.
DESIGN HOSTEL GOLLY±BOSSY by STUDIO UP
In 2010, the already once-converted cold sulfur springs “Savo” building was converted again, from a shopping center into a hostel, in only 100 days after guerrilla action. The architects retained existing modes of carrying people between floors — panoramic elevator, escalators, and the staircase — while partitioning the retail space by a system of walls that contain the essentials for any hostel: beds, laboratories, showers, and toilets.
Berchtesgaden Youth Hostel by LAVA – Laboratory for Visionary Architecture
Located in Berchtesgaden, Germany, the Berchtesgaden Youth Hostel was remodeled with the intention of creating a stronger sense of community by exposing the details of the structure and allowing for more open space on the ground and mezzanine floor. Inside, the typical impersonal bedroom spaces were transformed into individualized rooms with bold colors and built-in storage. To further chance a sense of community, the foyer is painted with colorful stripes that represent the national flag of each European country.