Hotel Plaza Inn

Figueres, the birthplace of renowned Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, is replete with municipally- and privately-commissioned wall murals, sculptures placed in plazas and roundabouts, and other references to their beloved native son.  

The Hotel Plaza Inn, located on a main road at the western entrance to Figueres, has played on this theme by installing fiberglass merry-go-round horses, clowns, painted cows, cartoon figures, and other large-scale characters on the bannisters of most of the private hotel rooms facing the street; in addition, monumentally-scaled butterflies are affixed randomly all over the walls. In the interior foyer, the walls are completely covered with framed works – some are reproductions of Dali’s own paintings, while others include random posters or work of other artists. A golden human-scale King Tut figure, an old-fashioned pinball machine, and a broken marble column surround a reproduction of Dali’s Mae West room – on view in the nearby Dalí Theatre-Museum – set into and flush with the floor. The hotel unapologetically references the Surrealist artist with paintings and bas-reliefs in each of the private rooms, and a rooftop garden with Surrealist pranks welcomes guests as well.

The decoration of the exterior façade is visible from the street, and management typically welcomes visitors coming in to view and photograph the interior foyer and stairway.

~Jo Farb Hernández, 2015

Jo Farb Hernández

14 Pujada del Castell
Figueres, Catalunya, 17600 es
Latitude/Longitude: 42.2671269 / 2.9595715

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