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From the editor

I’ve been following the story of Ace Hotel’s launch in Australia since 2013. In October that year, I attended a hotel design symposium in Sydney at which Alex Calderwood, one of the original founders of the Ace Hotel chain, was a keynote speaker. He spoke about how he’d opened a trendy barber shop in Seattle in the 1990s that soon expanded to more than a dozen locations. Following that success, Alex and two friends moved into the hotel game, transforming a derelict property in Seattle into an affordable boutique hotel. Characterized by its vintage furniture, the hotel aimed to be, in Alex’s words, “a nexus of creative culture.” At the time I met Alex, Ace had five locations, including New York, and had just launched its first London hotel. After his keynote, I had a warm and friendly interview with him and asked about possible plans for an Australian location. He told me he’d enjoyed exploring Surry Hills and could see an Ace Hotel being part of that neighbourhood. Sadly, one month later, Alex passed away.

Now, almost a decade later and with new leadership at the helm, Ace Hotel has 10 locations. Sydney is its latest, located in the neighbourhood Alex loved. And it has been worth the wait. Lead designer Flack Studio, working with a slew of designers, artists and creatives, has created a worthy addition to the Ace stable and, in the process, made “a powerful statement about Australian interior design’s role in communicating and celebrating the nation’s contemporary culture and values.” You can read Cameron Bruhn’s story about Ace Hotel Sydney on page 46.

This issue, we also take a trip around Australia, visiting new wellness interiors in Canberra and Subiaco, as well as hospitality venues overlooking the New South Wales coastline and the busy Melbourne CBD.

– Cassie Hansen, Editor, Artichoke

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