history of the hotel

Via archinect. A History of the Hotel, slide show. Apparently the history of the MODERN hotel begins in America…

Screenshot from slide show: “Photograph of demonstration against segregated hotels, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 4, 1962. Bill Young/Atlanta Journal-Constitution.”

“It was only in the 20^th century that American hospitality became truly democratic. Beginning in 1908, E.M. Statler challenged the hotel industry’s attention to the wealthy by declaring that he would offer hospitality “at a price ordinary people can afford.” Statler’s slogan, “A bed and a bath for a dollar and a half,” launched his hotel empire and made him, as a 1950 trade journal put it, “The Hotel Man of the Half Century.” A decade later, the civil rights movement launched a wave of demonstrations against discrimination in travel facilities. Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech—which evoked the plight of black wayfarers with the reminder that “our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities”—helped persuade Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in public accommodations.”

In terms of hotels, I have always liked the caravansérails of the old médinas. Acording to Archnet.org, wich provides you with a dictionary of Islamic architecture, the caravanserai, is a “Roadside building which provides accomodation and shelter for travellers.” Also,

“The term caravanserai is a composite Turkish term derived from caravan (i.e. a group of travellers) and serai (palace). Generally it refers to a large structure which would be capable of coping with a large number of travellers, their animals and goods. The term first seems to have been used in the twelfth century under the Seljuks and may indicate a particularly grand form of khan with a monumental entrance. During the Saffavid period in Iran (seventeenth to eighteenth century) caravanserais are often huge structures with four iwans.”