News Release

WOLFSBURG, Germany, April 26 /PRNewswire/ -- The list of the top 10 all-time most famous Danes will surely always include the name of that immortal teller of fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875). Fables like The Emperor's New Clothes, The Princess and the Pea and The Ugly Duckling brought Andersen international fame. And strangely enough, just in time for the celebrations surrounding his 200th birthday, a very unusual story has unfolded in the writer's home town of Copenhagen, which reads like a modern-day version of the classic Anderson tale of "Lucky Hans." Here too, the story revolves around an exchange, and although perhaps it doesn't involve clumps of gold and grindstones, but beds and business, art and commerce the parallels are just too striking to be ignored.

The "Hans" of this modern-day version lives in Copenhagen, and his name is Brochner. He is the owner of the Park Hotel situated on the edge of the city-centre. Or better said - he was, because the Park Hotel no longer exists. Hans Brochner swapped it for a project called "Fox". However, this Hans is firmly convinced that he has made a much better deal than the flat-footed simpleton of the fairy tale, who is hoodwinked time and again and finally agrees to swap his treasure for a stone. "Of course it's all a bit of an adventure;" the 70-year-old Brochner agrees. "At the beginning I did ask myself what I was letting myself in for, because it all happened so very quickly." The whole story started in November 2004 with a mysterious phone call from Germany. The caller asked Mr Brochner whether he would be prepared to close his hotel immediately and throw out all the furniture. A group of about three dozen artists from all over the world would then fly in to redecorate the whole place, each according to their - fairly individual - tastes. Lurid, garish stuff, probably, graffiti frescoes on the ceilings, cartoons and comics scrawled all over the walls and doors is what it would probably look like, although no guarantees of course, because there was no telling what the artists would be inspired to do once they got going. But that was the point of the whole venture, anyway. And then, of course: an entire new staff would be trained and sent to Copenhagen to look after selected guests who would be staying in the revamped hotel for a couple of weeks. Then the whole troupe would vanish, the hotel would be handed back to him, but the new name and the room prices would stay fixed. The decision, the caller continued, would have to be taken immediately as it was an extremely urgent matter. Any questions?

Hans Brochner was not the only hotelier whom the caller approached with the unusual proposal to let strangers turn their place upside down. Most of his colleagues refused to meet the caller or discuss the project in any detail, and some hung up in mid sentence, reported event organiser Cedric Ebener. "They probably thought it was just a hoax." But Brochner, an old hand in the hotel industry, was interested as the caller had insisted that this was a project run by Volkswagen, Europe's biggest automobile manufacturer. If they really planned to do something like that, he thought, something was bound to come of it.

The Wolfsburg-based company was in desperate search for accommodation for approximately 800 journalists who would be coming to Copenhagen in spring 2005 for the presentation of the new Volkswagen Fox. Instead of booking them into traditional first-class accommodation, the plan was to find accommodation with an atmosphere that matched the image of the absolute beginners' vehicle, and corresponded to the ideas and lifestyle of the new car's target group: young, dynamic, innovative, unconventional and totally unique - is how the car managers imagined the ideal location in which to introduce the Fox to the press. And since such a place didn't exist, it would have to be built - and fast!

Once the owner had agreed work could start immediately. Manpower and money were all waiting in the wings, urged the project managers in Germany. This modern fairytale would have to get going pretty soon, otherwise the happy end could be a dangerously close shave. But in fact it didn't take long before Brochner was as enthusiastic as anybody about the plan. The modern Hans wanted to prove himself as undaunted as his fairytale namesake and bravely agreed to swap his property for a tempting vision, which was only available as a computer simulation at that point: a lifestyle hotel unequalled anywhere in the world.

The deal was sealed with a handshake in December 2004. Instead of the bureaucracy and legal artillery that usually accompany every detail of such ventures, this one was agreed verbally, as time was very short. Project Fox, this quick clinch between a multinational and a small business, was ready to roll.

"Free for collection: entire furnishings of the Park Hotel in Copenhagen," was the text of the ad that appeared in the classifieds of a Copenhagen daily shortly before Christmas 2004. It was an innocuous enough beginning for what is surely one of the most spectacularly ambitious art projects foreign business has ever launched in Denmark.

According to local journalists, approximately 1,500 people stormed the hotel soon afterwards. Radio stations warned listeners about severe bottlenecks around Jarmers Plads on the edge of the city-centre, and advised drivers to avoid it. Cars were indeed choc-a-bloc all round the square as bounty hunters from all over the country scrambled to grab whatever they could carry or fit into their cars, from beds, sinks, padded armchairs to ceiling lamps. And after a few hours, the six-storey building was practically empty. "It was utter pandemonium," said Hans Brochner, whose family runs three other hotels in Copenhagen. "On that day I realised there was no going back. I did wonder if the risk I had let myself in for, this so-called happening with a bunch of strangers, was too high after all. No more furniture, no more guests, staff without jobs, and all because a couple of people I'd never even seen before had fired me up with enthusiasm. Was I naive, brave or just completely out of my mind?"

Happily, however, there was little time for reflection. Just a few weeks later in January 2005, Hans Brochner, handed his hotel over to the VW team, as had been agreed: all 61 rooms, empty, with whitewashed walls. What happened now was a surprise, even for the project planners: in record time, 21 artists or art groups, a total of 40 young men and women from 13 different countries were to transform a simple 3-star hotel into a live-in museum of modern art, replete with visions and dreams, secret wishes and surreally humorous fantasies. The unique Hotel Fox began to take shape, and the old Park Hotel was no more.

"There was huge progress every day," reported Kim Pörksen, artistic supervisor of the project. "It was like watching a brightly coloured jungle take shape in fast forward mode." And out of the chaos and the dust there emerged a whole new world of experience and untold diversity, a long-overdue assassination attempt on run-of-the-mill hotel accommodation.

Guests are invited to enter a world of poetry, which they can discover step by step - from the airy elegance of the lobby downstairs up to the boudoirs on the attic floor. No sooner have they put their luggage down in their room, guests are greeted by magical creatures of the woods, little elfs or saucy geishas. Where a king watches over sleeping guests in one room, other rooms have with long-armed monsters to ward off evil spirits away, or astound and amuse with sumptuous oriental deco, and hillbilly comic strips from the Alps.

Between Mexican wrestlers and felt-tip racing cars, cute doll pictures and pseudo latticework, furniture lies hidden that only unfolds its true potential in a creative context: retro classics from the flea market, blood-red shelves, cast-iron tables, huge beds on fat club feet, antique wardrobes, tree bark and branches, cosy cushions, clever drawings and the finest of graphic design. Whether it's soft or loft - the different interiors defy all limits and expectations. Each room is unique, and every door opens into another world. Guests of the Hotel Fox are booking into more than a bed and breakfast. Hotel Fox is the original celebration of the modern zeitgeist, gaudy, loose and fancy-free. Guests enter a surreal world and are confronted with things that fascinate or disturb, delight or move them. It's better living for cosmopolitans, a must for young urban travellers who want to experience global thinking live. In short, it's anything but your standard boarding house. Seen the sign? You have left the land of the predictable. The laws of traditional cultural criticism no longer apply. Anything goes in this wonderland cabinet of the bizarre and miraculous. It's time to join the artists, to get swept up by their energy and inspiration as they elegantly tread along that narrow line between underground kitsch and new wave art. Guests - oh guests - a smile will be conjured up on your faces, and a glowing memory of your room in Copenhagen will follow you all the way home. No more, no less.

What started out for Brochner as a "thrilling adventure story with an uncertain conclusion" was also an enormous challenge for Volkswagen. "Let's do it," was CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder's immediate reaction when PR staff first showed him the plans. The hotel project proposal of creating something of lasting value to mark the launch of the Fox appealed to him straight away for its novelty value, and the message it sends round the world, a message whose impact will grow over the years.

The VW CEO also wants to use the opportunity to counter well-known claims that companies of this size resemble super-tankers in their stubborn refusal to stray from their established course, their incapacity to change direction or react flexibly to new trends and situations.

"That hasn't been the case for Volkswagen for a long time," says Pischetsrieder, mentioning numerous activities that have already been successfully launched. "Promoting young talent has long been an established part of our corporate culture and is showing very lively development." The Volkswagen Foundation has been actively involved in German research for years, and right now we are setting up the Volkswagen Campus - the company's very own centre for further education - in Wolfsburg." Alongside its support for science and technology, Pischetsrieder also emphasised the company's intention to increase its support for arts-related projects. "We already have some successes under our belt. The Volkswagen Sound Foundation has proved a real magnet for musicians. The wide range of events on offer in the so-called "Autostadt" (Car City) of Wolfsburg successfully presented a lot of new, experimental themes to a receptive public, some of whom now travel a long way to be there." With Project Fox, Volkswagen has now gone one step further.

All the same, the risks attached to involving a provocative bunch of unconventional designers, illustrators, graphic artists and a wild street-art clique, used to working with no restrictions whatsoever, in the launch of the new Fox model was something the people from Volkswagen were well aware of. But the young artists, too, for whom any form of dependence is usually anathema, had to overcome their initial scepticism towards the all-powerful multinational. Art and business - could that really work?

"When they said they just wanted us to do whatever we liked, we couldn't believe it," said Xavi, a design all-rounder with the Spanish group Freaklub from Barcelona. "But they really did keep their word and never interfered in our work." And Speto, an experienced graffiti artist from Sao Paulo, Brazil said, "Any fears I'd had of their slamming the brakes on, or having to cater to someone else's tastes vanished after the first talk. They understand how we work - it's really cool."

The openness of the Volkswagen team towards all the ideas put forward impressed the young avant-garde. "We went up there with a pretty clear idea of what we were going to do. But once we got there we changed almost everything, because totally new and exciting ideas just came out of the woodwork here, and we let that inspire us as straightaway," said the members of Viagrafik from Wiesbaden, describing their work. "They didn't have any problems with that at all."

"At least none that couldn't be solved in some way," added coordinator Kim Pörksen, who had to keep an overview of the creative chaos. His main task was to make sure that the artists' ideas were technically feasible, and compatible with the structure and practical needs of a working hotel. "Despite the diversity of their backgrounds, the project participants soon made friends and formed new networks," said Pörkson. "There was this incredible feeling, this huge motivation: 40 people, 13 nationalities, 61 visions and one common denominator: to create the world's most fantastic hotel in the space of four weeks."

The Volkswagen project in the Danish capital has attracted a lot of attention. The marketing industry has hailed Project FOX as a stroke of genius from which Volkswagen will gain on at least two counts: Even before it hits the streets, the new Fox is already seen as a young, dynamic vehicle. Secondly, it brings enormous benefits for Volkswagen as a brand. Clients will increasingly see it as a fresh, original and daring brand that cares about young people. And what about our hotelier Hans Brochner? Well, "Lucky Hans" is the talk of the town right now and the subject of considerable envy. "It's miles better then I ever dared imagine," he beams. And once the jaunty little Fox has been launched on April 25th, the Hotel Fox is open for business.

A picture is available at European Pressphoto Agency (EPA)

Details on Project Fox: www.project-fox.org

Information and reservations: www.hotelfox.dk

Author: Rainer Hartheim - printing free of charge

    
    Contact: Volkswagen Group Communications
    Corporate Communications
    Contact: Hartwig von Sass
    Phone: +49-53-61-98-62-66
    Fax: +49-53-61-97-46-29
    E-mail: hartwig.von.sass@volkswagen.de
    www.volkswagen-media-services.com

Distributed by PR Newswire on behalf of Volkswagen AG