JW Marriott Hotel

It’s housed in one of Asia’s most visually inspiring hotels, the JW Marriott Hanoi. So when greymatters architectural studio accepted the brief to create internationally famous chef Akira Back’s first restaurant in Vietnam, with adjoining bar space, they knew they needed to pull together something as spectacular as the surroundings it would be sitting in.
They called on Written and Illustrated. “The hotel had strict stipulations that anything built adjacent to the magnificent Carlos Zapata Studio-designed main hotel building had to be temporary…so there was only one thing for it – we would have to work with shipping containers, the world’s greatest temporary structure!” says Barr, who commissioned us to work collaboratively with his team. Over five weeks Steve worked on-site to complete the epic mural, which can be seen from all vantage points in the hotel. “He really understood the brief,” Barr explains. “We could have photoshopped a few things, but I don’t think we could come up with the depth of that artwork. This ended up being the biggest by-square-meterage commissioned piece of artwork we have ever done.”