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Hotel Excelsior
Typography Design since 2007

One of our most cherished projects is the finishing of a 40 year old typography, done in 1966 as a signage of the now closed Hotel Excelsior (San Juan). This is a work in progress, which we have been working on for the past year. The idea came to O'Neill in 1992, but she was able to convince former owner to develop the typography in 2007. Hotel Excelsior is an emblematic modernist idea. The first woman hotel manager in Puerto Rico, who also was one of Cornell University first woman Hospitality graduates. The architects were Caribe Hilton's prize winner Toro y Ferrer. The project has a virtual project book, a private Tiki website that allows us - as a collaborative tool - to share research (articles, photos, interviews, etc.), typography drafts, discussions, links referrals, and also, a way for the client to follow development. When the project is finished, the site will be open to the public, as a documentation and also, for the studies of design students.

     

The challenge is not only to set the young designers in the 1960s mode but at the same time, not to deny their contemporary gaze. The typography is a recovery with a contemporary use. History of Tourism and Hospitality Architecture, the search of the original designer (now presumed dead), issues of when is mutilation and when is too much interpretation were raised and still working on to resolve them. Is one of our more interesting projects, because it has become a connection with the past at the same time it speaks to us about the future. The research of Hotel Excelsior and its time lead us to the curator of Caribe China Exhibition and helps us to make a conceptual connection to others projects we worked on.

This upcoming december (2009) we will be participating in a clinic with Cátedra Cosgaya, Buenos Aires, Argentina (top photo: Pablo Cosgaya meeting with O'Neill, november 2008). We are planning to present the typography in 2010 at Museo Casa Roig and as well, insert it in the Typographic Latinoamerican Movement.

 

      
Conferencia: Arthur Asseo y Josue Oquendo, cátedra del profesor Gabriel Piovanetti (dsnotipo.com), Escuela Internacional de Diseño, Museo y Centro de Estudios Humanísticos, Universidad del Turabo, 10 de noviembre de 2009

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