"Hoteliers should do more to adapt interior design to architecture": Dominique Perrault, architect

What are your links with the hotel industry?

Dominique Perrault - In recent years, I've built a tower in Barcelona that has been transformed into a Melia hotel. I also designed the Donau City Tower in Vienna, which - coincidentally - has a Me by Melia on its floors. So I have certain links with the hotel industry, but I regret that there isn't always consistency between the spirit of the architecture and the design of the establishment. The hotel brands come with their own designers and their own layout habits. When you're dealing with a standard building, it's effective. But when it's a question of auteur architecture, I think you can do something finer, more elegant, more cultured. Hoteliers should take more inspiration from the architectural envelope so that it permeates the hotel, creating a truly original place.

Architecture and the hotel industry often come together in multifunctional buildings. Why this trend?

D. P. - For a long time, emblematic architecture was reserved for public buildings and prestigious head offices that people didn't always have access to. Thirty years ago, buildings were still mono-functional. For some time now, there has been a real move towards multiple uses, with a hotel, housing, offices and a rooftop restaurant all on the same site. These days, property developments are diversifying, not least because it makes for a less risky business plan.

How do you explain the growing public interest in contemporary architecture?

D. P. - It's fascinating to observe today this curiosity, this appetite for discovery in contemporary buildings. When people travel, they go and see these new buildings. They're basically the only discoveries you can make in your lifetime. Nature, landscapes, the residence of a king from days gone by: all these things are immutable or inscribed in the past. New buildings and new cities are part of life, part of the present.

What differences are there between your work on restructuring the Louvre post office and the creation of the Donau City Tower in Vienna?

D. P. - Obviously, the architectural objectives and issues are not identical. But on both sides, it's the same work of revelation. The Louvre post office has a late 19th century architecture, while the Vienna Tower reveals a district in the making. Architecture accompanies urban transformation. Half the world's population will be living in cities in a few years' time. It is the aesthetic transcription of this evolution, the mirror of life on the move.