Style challenge

David Chipperfield's problem with hotels is that they are either old-fashioned and chintzy or excessively modern and over-designed. So when the British architect took on a hotel project himself, he had the chance to create what might be called the first post-designer hotel.

The result is the Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan, a hotel whose understatement and sobriety have helped it to win plaudits as one of the quiet glories of the city's hotel scene. And that's largely because Chipperfield has succeeded in his aim of doing the simple things well, and has understood that while there will always be people who respond to the kind of Ian Schrager creation that promises a backdrop against which to live out a fantasy, most of us prefer a less oppressive experience when we check in and flop down on the bed after a long journey. "We thought there was a gap in the middle that was neither too overpowering nor too clever," Chipperfield says. "Our idea was to make something that would grow old without looking out of date too soon."

Chipperfield, 49, is best known here for his award-winning Rowing Museum at Henley-on-Thames. Other notable commissions include the restoration of the Neues Museum in Berlin, and he was one of the architects shortlisted for the Tate Modern project. He has also been responsible for a number of high-profile shop interiors around the world – Issey Miyake, Kenzo and Joseph.

With the Bryant Park, Chipperfield had the added challenge of remaining true to the vision of the architect who designed the original building, which is one of the most stunning examples of an early New York skyscraper, as rich in detail and expression as the more famous Chrysler Building, just on a smaller scale. The first thing you notice about the Bryant Park building is that, unusually for New York, you can actually get a proper look at it. When you walk Manhattan's streets there are only so many times you want to throw your head back and reel at the sight of 1,000ft of concrete and glass pouring upwards, which is why the classic views of New York are often from a little way offshore or from Central Park.

But Bryant Park, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, a couple of blocks from Grand Central Station, provides another aspect. Here you can stand on one side of the park and the full majesty of the skyscraper presents itself. Height is only part of the story. There is also the façade – the way pattern, detailing and materials, allied to scale, add up to create the effect that the architect intended.

That man was Raymond Hood, a leading New York architect of the early-20th century, who also designed the auditorium and foyer of the nearby Radio City Music Hall and the RCA building that forms the centrepiece of the Rockefeller Center. The Bryant Park building, commissioned by the American Radiator Company and completed in 1924, is a wondrously dignified structure, its most striking features being the unusual black brick and gilded terracotta ornamentation. The French writer Paul Morand describes it in his 1931 book New York, one of the most evocative ever written about the city. Crossing Bryant Park one dark afternoon, he sees the American Radiator Building, "the colour of dark grapes", which is "crowned with a tiara of gold, like that of some modern Kremlin; lit from beneath, its head merges with the mist and makes the darkness glow".

For Chipperfield, it's "a very clever building". "Hood observed that windows tend to look black, so in order to get a very strong format, he made the building black. The windows and the building add up to a strong mass. Hood set the tone for the rest of the Manhattan skyline. 'Glowing embers' he called it, with its gold top. It was really the first Manhattan skyscraper."

The narrowness of the building presented a particular problem – "you wouldn't believe how difficult it was to turn an office building with one set of fire escapes into a hotel with a new set" – but also an opportunity to move on from the Schrager template. "Lack of space meant there was a limit to what we could do with the lobby and bar area, but we decided that what this meant was that we would make sure the rooms and the bathrooms were much bigger than you would normally find in a hotel of this level. No amount of design is going to compensate for having a small room."

Not that the lobby lacks impact, with its black terracotta flooring, dark wood reception desks, and, most striking of all, burgundy leather panelling. The bar/restaurant to one side combines grandeur and intimacy. "We were trying to find a look that fitted with the building as a 1930s monument," Chipperfield says. "We were very aware of the presence of the architecture, and I don't think something flamboyant inside would have been true to what Hood created. It's trying to be quite light in the way it touches the building."

Chipperfield is happy though to credit Schrager with the recovery of a concept that he thinks had been lost from hotels – the lobby with pulling power. "He revived the idea that there could be a scene going on in the public spaces of the hotel. He upped the pressure on these public spaces to perform again, and that was an extraordinary change.

"There was a period, for example, when you would never have dreamt of eating in the hotel you stayed at. There's a climate now where people are ready to imagine that you can go to the bar or restaurant of a hotel and get good quality. But what was required to make that work was a very heavy dose of design. Schrager stepped up to the mark and did it. He made hotels glamorous, and now that's been done I think there's a sense in which hotels like this don't have to be so glamorous." With the rooms, which feature oak floors, chocolate leather headboards and beds covered with linens and goosedown, Chipperfield has achieved simplicity rather than opulence.

Some critics think the Bryant Park carries echoes of New York's 1970s disco era. For others it's Cary Grant and the 1950s. "Timeless classic" is probably something everyone can agree on, and for that, in the centre of Manhattan, you're going to have to pay. Off-season rooms begin at $265 (£165) a night, rising to $2,000 (£1,250) for a penthouse. When I ate at the hotel restaurant, the bill for two was $300 (£185). You could ask, "Is it worth it?", but the question presupposes that a hotel is offering something merely tangible. The best offer rather more than that, and the Bryant Park is certainly one of them. But then you don't have to stay there to savour it. You could go for a drink – or just look at it from across the park. *

The Bryant Park, 40 West 40th Street, New York, tel: 001 212 869 0100. Simon O'Hagan flew to New York courtesy of American Airlines, tel: 020 8572 5555