Swanky Mint Hostel is situated in the blocks' courtyard in Ilica street no. 50 in which, from the year 1887 till the 1950-ies, the linen coloring and dry cleaning shop was located and was owned by the family Ondrušek whose name still stands on the street-side facade of the building. The architects, Hönigsberg & Deutsch, designed the building. After the shop was closed, most of the space was abandoned for a number of years keeping the remains of time when the building was built.
The project is the result of a desire to create a memory of space, with reference to the soul of old town and the old crafts.
The facade was renovated with the permission of the City Insititute for the Conservation of Cultural and Natural Heritage. All the architectural decorations were renewed and aditionally accentuated with dark grey color, which was also selected for the reconstruction of the metalwork. Cold colors of the blocks' courtyard lure visitors inside the building which is a sort of a transition to green zone located on the northern terrace of the hostel, that further stretches towards Rokos' garden.
Hostel is atypical in its offering of three kinds of accommodation. By partitioning the eastern wing of the ground floor, three apartments were built which have a direct entrance to the blocks' courtyard. Big bedrooms are located in the eastern wing of the floor and one is in the ground floor, while private rooms provide peace to the visitors with their postion in the western wing of the floor, where they are seperated from public contents of the hostel - a bar and it's terrace. The room layout didn't change in relation to the original state in which once existed the office space.
During the reconstruction the goal was to preserve as many valuable elements of the space and existing inventory as possible. Olden brick walls and segmented arches, where applicable, were kept in their original state so the installations were made visible. The stairway also saw as little intervention as possible. Furniture was tailor-made in the industrial style where steel, wood and OSB were used, which in this case wasn't used as structural support rather it was used as a finishing cover. Old machines were given a new function, as part of the new furniture or as decorative elements in the interior. The machine for processing the linen was used for the construction of the reception counter. The flooring is in industrial style, and epoxy floor in the bar contains old blueprints and permits from the archive, as well as new blueprints of the hostel and the photographs of the design process. The bathrooms, whose walls are treated with waterproof paint, give warmth and livelines to the buildings cold character.

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FUNCTION: tourism, restaurant & bar

LOCATION: Ilica 50, Zagreb

YEAR: 2013.

STATUS: built