The issue of tourism is dominated by a fundamental paradox. The more people visit the pristine landscapes of their destinations, the more these become populous and artificial. For the energetic traveler who wants to pioneer in the discovery of new paradises, the presence of tourists is a major disappointment. All tourists though, even the most passive, are driven by the basic quest of a remote natural paradise experience. Their very arrival, however, pollutes the paradise.

How many tourists and on what terms fit in paradise? The problem is economical in the broadest sense of the economy of the landscape. The main way in which the visitor consumes the landscape is the view. Restaurants, bars and hotels are competing for the best view by occupying the most prominent positions, ironically undermining the product itself they are bartering, the beauty of the landscape.

The proposal is for a hotel with rooms without view, considering the landscape cost of the view as disproportionate to the benefits. A few minutes gaze from each room is not enough to justify neither the framing of the landscape by an intensive array of windows and balconies, nor the consequent sense of surveillance which erodes its primacy.

Like a multi-storey hotel block that has fallen onto the sloping landscape, the rooms are part of a compact horizontal plate and look into private patios. This plate covers the communal zone of the hotel. Residents emerge from this sea-oriented area to the ultimate view from the roof to finally submerge to their individual room. Countering the relentless exposure of the body to the gazes and the sun, rooms offer a shaded base for rest, isolation and recharge.

Design team:
Iro Bertaki
Christina Loukopoulou
Costis Paniyiris
Thodoris Tousas

Consultants:
Manos Kyriazis (structural engineer)

Client:
Tourism Landscapes: Remaking Greece, curator Yannis Aesopos
14th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia 2014