Inside Story

Acclaimed interior designers Yabu Pushelberg create compelling narratives for five-star hotels around the world

- Mark C. O'Flaherty

YOU’VE ALMOST DEFINITELY stayed at a hotel designed by George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg. Maybe it was The Londoner in Leicester Square, or the Edition or Pan Pacific in the same city. Perhaps it was The St. Regis Mexico City, the Four Seasons Toronto or Park Lane in New York. They are the absolute go-to designers for big-brand five-star hotels, and as tirelessly inventive as their work is ubiquitous.

The Toronto- and New York-based design studio Yabu Pushelberg, founded in 1980, is all about weaving a fresh narrative with each new project, and its founders talk in extraordinary depth about each story they are telling. Park Lane was a refurb of a 1971 landmark, with bright colors running through the interior, purposely matched to Pantone codes from the original era. “When we were working on The Londoner,” says Yabu, “we thought about how the city itself had developed as a series of hamlets that became connected, and the history of its members clubs. We reflected that in terms of the way we structured the spaces, with secret areas to discover for guests.”

At any given time, there are dozens of Yabu Pushelberg projects in progress, including the new Park Hyatt resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, which has been ten years in the making. “We have finished 66 hotels so far,” they chime together by Zoom from their apartment in New York. “But we might be missing a few.” Currently under development: interiors for a JW Marriott Tokyo and ground-up projects for Aman and its new Janu brand, as well as for Raffles.