Best Ceiling Ever – Sofitel Stephansdom Vienna Hotel Restaurant by Architect Jean Nouvel and Artist Pipilotti Rist

One of my favorite living designers is renowned French architect Jean Nouvel.  For his recent commission to design the huge new Sofitel Vienna Stephansdom Hotel, he teamed up with visual artist Pipilotti Rist.  Nouvel’s admiration for her renowned body of work as a conceptual artist has led to one of the most stunning and colorful collaborations in architecture and visual art that I’ve seen in recent memory.  Located throughout the hotel, visitors are dazzled by the trademark bold artistry of Rist in the illuminated ceiling and video panels that inject a brilliant candy-like, almost hallucinatory atmosphere into the carefully considered and colder crystalline structure.