Entrenched in history, the Grand Hotel Principe di Savoia in Milan has been known to host notable guests such as Edward VIII and Charlie Chaplin. World-renowned Italian architect Marco Nereo Rotelli, best known for his highly creative light installations at landmarks around the world, has now transformed the hotel’s neoclassical façade into a page of luminous history using ERCO lighting tools in a design concept that includes Grasshopper projectors and Focalflood grazing light wallwashers to model the timeless elegance of the architecture.
Established in 1927, the Principe di Savoia has long become a landmark in Milan and one of the world’s foremost luxury hotels. Overlooking the Piazza della Repubblica, just a stone’s throw from the famous La Scala opera house and Milan Cathedral, it has been frequented over the decades by a long line of senior politicians, royalty, business moguls and showbiz stars. Among its most prominent guests were Queen Elizabeth II, Aristoteles Onassis, Henry Ford, David Rockefeller, Evita Peron and Elizabeth Taylor, who resided at the five-star establishment that, in 2003, became part of the Dorchester Collection owned by the Brunei Investment Agency. It was the latter who commissioned the Italian architect and light artist Marco Nereo Rotelli with the creation of a contemporary lighting concept that would dignify the magnificent neoclassical façade that rises up ten storeys.
