Country's largest hotel readied for Amsterdam RAI
After years of delays, Amsterdam RAI is getting its own hotel and with its 650 rooms, Nhow RAI will win the title of largest hotel in the Netherlands. The design of the building was chosen from eleven candidates and is designed by Rem Koolhaas from well-known Rotterdam architecture firm OMA. The 91-meter tall hotel is the fourth branch of the four-star Nhow chain, after Rotterdam, Milan and Berlin, and has six rooms more than the current number biggest hotel, Ibis Hotel at Schiphol. Nhow is owned by NH Hotels, which has hotels across the country. Construction is set to begin between the RAI Randstad complex and the A10 highway, with a planned parking garage that can serve as an exhibition hall as well.
On the 25th floor, the hotel will have a bar, a restaurant and a multimedia lounge for meetings and presentations. Additionally, Nhow Amsterdam will serve as a television studio, a gallery with a sculpture garden and a spa center, NH Hotels revealed on Tuesday. Among the features will be a virtual 3D holographic meeting space for having "in person" meetings with the holographs of people in another location. RAI has been working on the completion of the hotel for 15 years. Plans for an 800-room hotel at the back of the complex were cancelled by the municipality at the last minute due to its proximity to Beatrix Park.
