An experience at Maison & Objet 2026 and the project that made us rethink what a hotel means
Entering the SUITE 2046 designed by Rudy Guenaire on behalf of this year Maison & Objet 2026, you immediately understand that this is not another exhibition project, but an experience.
It feels like someone has entered your mind, read all the thoughts you've been silently thinking in hotel rooms for the past twenty years, and written them on the walls.
With humor, with irony and above all with precision.
SUITE 2046 does not foresee the future of hospitality with gadgets and technology. It does something much more radical: challenges what we consider "normal" in a hotel.
Who is Rudy Guénaire
O Rudy Guenaire is not just an interior designer or architect. He is one of the most unconventional creators in the field of hospitality, known mainly as the man behind the Hotel Amour, the Grand Pigalle, the Le Pigalle and an entire philosophy that says this simple:
The hotel is not a product, it is a life experience.
Guénaire designs spaces like he designs characters. He obsessively observes guest behavior, minor annoyances, inconvenient details, "silent frustrations" and then turns them into a narrative.
SUITE 2046 is just that: a collection of short text-observations that sound funny, but are absolutely true.
Many of the texts in SUITE 2046 do not talk about objects, but about emotions. For the loneliness of the traveler. About how a hotel room becomes a temporary, neutral, almost impersonal place.
The bed, the light, the carpet, the objects, everything acquires a voice. Not to relax you, but to make you wonder:
Do I feel like a guest or just a passerby?
This existential tone is perfectly connected to Maison & Objet 2026, where its sentimental value of design is at the center. It is no longer enough for a room to be "nice". It must have a reason to exist.
Objects that exist by habit
Almost every wall in SUITE 2046 comments on an object we all know:
The uncomfortable slippers, the minibar that is the same everywhere, the water that is "offered" as a gift, the bathroom items wrapped in plastic, decorative pillows and fabrics on the bed that no one wants to touch because they consider them dirty, the decoration that looks like it was put in so that the wall wouldn't remain empty.
Guénaire does not ask if they are beautiful or ugly. He asks something more dangerous:
Do we need them?
And if the answer is no, then why do we persist?
Hotel slippers become a symbol of a hospitality that has lost touch with the body. They don't fit, they aren't comfortable, they aren't human. They exist simply because "that's how it is".
So is the water in the minibar. Guénaire deconstructs it with surgical irony: water is not a gift. It's a given. And when you present it as generosity, you just reveal how low you've set the bar for caring.
And he suggests, with humor, something more honest:
give us coconut water, give us something that has character, memory, narrative. Even if it's not perfect in taste, at least it has a story.
Behind the joke hides a serious truth that perfectly touches the theme of Maison & Objet 2026:
The visitor is no longer looking for window-shop generosity, but meaning.
Similar, the art on the walls of SUITE 2046 gives rise to one of the project's sharpest observations. Guénaire is not talking about whether a work is expensive or cheap, but whether it is true. Neutral images, anonymous prints and "decorative works" that don't bother anyone are there just to fill the space and ultimately empty it of meaning. The message is clear: if you can't support a real artistic choice, it's better to leave the wall blank. Because emptiness is honest; while fake art is just another form of pretend hospitality.
In the context of Maison & Objet 2026, where sustainability, honesty and substance return to the fore, these comments ring a belli.
photos by Maison & ObjetSUITE 2046 does not show the future. It shows what we have to leave behind
The most clever element of the installation is that does not suggest solutions. It doesn't say what to do. It says what to stop doing mechanically.
To stop filling rooms for no reason, to confuse hospitality with the checklist, to plan for "everyone" and ultimately for no one.
SUITE 2046 is a manifesto of deconstruction. And perhaps that is why it is one of the most essential and topical projects of this year's Maison & Objet.
In a year where Maison & Objet talks about redefinition, emotional value and meaningful design, SUITE 2046 stood out precisely because it didn't try to be impressive. He was honest.
And maybe that's the hardest thing about hosting after all.
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