This class of hotel was identified and classified by writer and photographer Herbert Ypma through two publications, HIP Hotels: City (1999)[12] and HIP Hotels: Escape (2000).[13] Associated with designers such as Philippe Starck, Terence Conran and Anouska Hempel, these hotels were defined by Ypma as an alternative to what he called the dreary sameness of chain hotels and the stuffy pomposity of