Mama Shelter completes Rennes hotel design
Mama Shelter has opened its latest French property, this time in the medieval city of Rennes. Across the hotel, architect and head of the Mama Shelter design studio Benjamin El Doghaïli has embraced Rennes’ vibrant heritage.
The new hotel finds home in a former bank, a listed building. As such, design on the site has been undertaken in line with local conservation laws, seeking to craft a new space without overshadowing its previous life. Upon entering, guests will find a lobby centred around a large rounded counter, designed in the Odorico brothers’ style and adorned in a mosaic frieze of buckwheat pancakes – a classic delicacy of the area – with caramel coloured walls.
The property’s 115 guestrooms vary in shape and size, some nestled under the roofing, and some with striking feature fireplaces. Bathrooms are designed to be timeless, with large black and white striped tiles accompanying a range of organic beauty products from Mama Skin.
Outside of rooms, the large brasserie restaurant offers views of the city from upholstered benches made with custom-made fabric, while a rooftop space facilitates views of the city’s bourgeois 19th century buildings and 16th century houses. Another lounge, meanwhile, is decorated entirely in pink and embellished with lobsters, mussels, seaweed and oysters, a nod to local seafood platter traditions. Acknowledgements of local culture continue beyond restaurants and lounges, extending to the corridors, where patterns on the carpets represent the lace of Bigouden headdresses and depict the stoat and wolf of Brittany’s flag.
“At Mama Shelter in Rennes, our teams have successfully met two challenges: to establish a contemporary hotel in a renovated historic complex, many parts of which come under the Bâtiments de France jurisdiction,” explains Serge Trigano, co-founder and President of Mama Shelter. “We also wanted to soak up traditions in this region of Brittany, with its strong personality and highly sophisticated culture. Having completed the work, we are now looking forward to sharing Mama’s festive spirit with the people of Rennes and all those who love Brittany. To invite them to experience and feel the city, in its restaurants and bars, which subtly tell its story.”
Additional amenities at Mama Shelter Rennes further its offerings to guests and beyond. Located in a central square, the hotel creates a natural extension of the city, open to passers-by who are able to visit its cocktail bar and lounges, as well as its restaurant and nine food shops. In the basement, meanwhile, colourful karaoke rooms are available to hire for groups. The hotel’s wellness spaces include a pink-tiled swimming pool space, a hammam and sauna, as well as a Mama Skin Spa – the first for Mama Shelter – a boudoir tucked away under stone vaults. Absolution, a French organic cosmetics house, has partnered with Ho Karan, a Breton cosmetics brand renowned for its hemp-based treatments, to offer various treatments in the spa.
Cédric Gobilliard, Mama Shelter’s Managing Director comments: “Living intelligently, means knowing how to live together, in social harmony. This is the motto of the city of Rennes, which also reflects Mama Shelter’s ethos. Opening the first Mama in Brittany, in the centre of Rennes and in a listed building, is a testimony to the boldness of Mama Shelter’s disruptive concept and its sincere desire to unveil its brand and festive spirit to the people of Rennes and to travellers who are lovers of authenticity.”
The Rennes opening is the brand’s ninth hotel in France, and its 17th worldwide.
