Stuttgart 'hotel' accepts performances as payment

Dec 31, 2009, 13:32 GMT

Stuttgart - Anyone can spend a night in a Stuttgart hotel for free. Too good to be true, you say? But true it is.

The place is called the Performance Hotel and it opened its doors at the end of July in the eastern part of the south-western German city. Guests who give an artistic performance need not open their wallets. But then accommodation is spartan, with a choice between curling up on a mattress on the floor or in a sleeping bag on a roll mat.

The premises in their entirety are a work of art of sorts, which is what Susanne Jakob intended. An instructor at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design (ABK), Jakob has made the house available to her students for a year.

One of her students is 'hotel director' Byung Chul Kim, a 36-year-old South Korean and the house's only regular resident. He said it was a project space and base station for discussions of art as well its practice, and part of the ABK's District East project, in which art students explore eastern Stuttgart. House expenses are borne by the ABK.

'I asked myself how I got such a great thing,' Kim related. The answer finally occurred to him one day: 'Because I'm a performer. And so other people who do what I do also get a roof over their heads.' That was the genesis of the Performance Hotel.

Art students cleaned out, then cleaned up, the run-down structure, a former vintner's house dating from the early 19th century. A designer papered the facade with colourful maps and calendar pages. Kim scrounged up a few pieces of furniture, some of which neighbours donated for free.

He is especially proud of the open-air 'wellness area,' consisting of an old bathtub in the overgrown garden.

There are two performance rooms on the ground floor. The upper floor has a pink bathroom with a television set, a kitchen with a dining table and two rooms for sleeping. The old floorboards creak. While the Performance Hotel may lack luxury, guests certainly leave with something to talk about.

As Kim sees it, a performance can be just about anything. This past summer a guest gave a grill party. Another gave a reading every evening. If a guest is at a loss for what to perform, Kim quickly finds a solution. 'What can you do especially well?' he asks.

One guest answered simply, 'Clean up.' Thus 'The Chambermaid' was born, a performance earning the young woman an overnight stay at no cost.

'Everything is art in a way,' Kim opined. Not everything goes, though. House rules forbid drugs and drunkenness. 'We're not a social welfare agency,' he remarked. 'We're an art project.'

The hotel cash register frequently stays shut and Kim prefers it that way. He would rather be given a performance. 'I get new ideas that way,' he said.

Guests unwilling or unable to come up with a performance pay 10 euros (14 dollars) to spend the night on a mattress, or three euros in a sleeping bag. Since there are only two rooms for sleeping in, roommates can be part of the bargain. The house once had 17 guests simultaneously.

'That was the maximum,' Kim said. The hotel often has no guests at all, however.

The rental agreement expires next summer, when the house is slated for demolition. Kim nevertheless hopes to continue running 'his' hotel somehow. 'You become acquainted with so many people,' he said enthusiastically.

Kim also conjures up breakfast for guests who want it, either bread and jam or muesli, and coffee or tea. But a performance of 'Eating Breakfast' does not free them from paying for the food.

Internet: http://performancehotel.wordpress.com.