The Drake Hotel Toronto adds five-storey ‘Modern Wing’

The new Modern Wing at Toronto’s Drake Hotel is a five-storey addition to the original nineteenth century Classic Wing, and provides the hotel with a new living room style lobby, an intimate street front bar, meeting and event spaces, 32 new guestrooms (for a total of 51), and a rooftop penthouse suite with a large terrace. DesignAgency took on the project of the Modern Wing’s interiors in collaboration with the Drake’s in-house design team and the original Drake hotel designer John Tong of +tongtong, with Diamond Schmitt Architects as the building’s architects. Adding local flavour came naturally to this team of design experts as, uniquely, all are residents of the area, and the project represents a significant milestone for the future of their neighbourhood.

Image credit: The Drake Hotel / Brandon Barre

“Since The Drake Hotel opened 17 years ago, the neighbourhood has matured from a local secret to a world-renowned destination for art, fashion, food and culture,” said Anwar Mekhayech, a founding partner at DesignAgency. “The interior design for the Modern Wing reflects how the Drake continues to lead this vibrant scene by rethinking and reinventing itself.”

In step with the hotel’s evolution, DesignAgency brought a sense of refinement to the Drake’s playful and referential style and grounded the interiors with a rich sense of place. A generous brass revolving door, and a red velvet curtained bar offer the elegant sense of arrival and comfort associated with the world’s most treasured vintage urban hotels. DesignAgency imagined the lobby as a place where guests and locals alike can mingle and savour the Drake’s famed cocktails. The eclectic mid-century modern furnishings and painted brick fireplace signal classic hospitality spiked with contemporary panache.

Image credit: The Drake Hotel / Brandon Barre

The lobby bar capitalises on the flow of energy between the street and interior. The Drake has always enlivened Queen Street West, and now its lobby bar features a curved, full-height window to engage passersby with bar guests, and vice versa.

Image credit: The Drake Hotel / Brandon Barre

The design team are all avid travellers, and their personal and professional understanding of the elements of a great hotel stay informed the lengthy design process of the guest suites. The rooms’ saturated colours, feature artists, and signature wallpapers – ranging from traditional Arts and Crafts style to geometrics – change from floor to floor, giving each a unique mood. Custom-made blankets, patterned rugs and lighting by local artisans, underscore the hotel’s creative expression. The nearly 1,000 square-foot, two-bedroom Rooftop Suite is the epitome of the Drake’s idiosyncratic personality and spirited approach, fearlessly mixing bold patterns with a sophisticated more-is-more attitude.

“The Drake Hotel made history when it opened as Toronto’s first design hotel,” said Mekhayech, “and this new phase gave us the chance to help reimagine it for the future.”

The Modern Wing both mirrors and creates a contrast to the more classic architectural design of the original Drake Hotel, and as the Drake’s first new building, it gives the community a vibrant new meeting space, and offers guests improved accessibility and an expanded variety of innovative and fun room options, all of which is expressed through the design and interior details.

Main image credit: The Drake Hotel / Brandon Barre