CHRISTIAN KRUG, MORITZ THEDEN & INA KRUG

... night thought‚ ‘Wow, what could we do here?’” Christian Krug, an avid Harley Davidson and Steve McQueen aficionado (he even wrote the actor's memoirs), explored the area on motor bikes, knowing quite early on that they would buy a piece of land here and build a hotel. Enter architect Moritz Theden, a seasoned architect commissioned by the Krugs who worked with the esteemed Norman Foster in Frankfurt and London before starting his own firm. For Theden, the project—to be called “The Great Getaway”—presented a new challenge. For starters, all of his previous work had been done in cities. Now, he was being asked to turn agrarian land, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, into a construction site. “If you build within an urban context, you try to incorporate a certain range of views,” he says. “But in the midst of an open piece of land, one has to create order oneself.” Conceptually, Christian Krug had been enchanted by lodge concepts commonly found on the African continent. The “simultaneous experience of nature and luxury,” as he explains it, was what he wanted to bring to Morocco. He wanted to create an oasis for people who had seen and experienced a lot, but still liked to be surprised. Today, the plans are complete and the construction site is in its final stages, with a September 2012 opening date already marked in the calendars of design aficionados the world over. “We are trying to combine the traditional and the modern. We are building the lodge of a world traveler and this approach will be palpable throughout the hotel.”