HOTELS > Giving In to the Art Lobby; Hotel Max, Seattle

Hotels have always had original art, but today the concept is being stretched to new limits, as the boutique hotel's sense of hospitality-as-theater is extended with daring creativity.

At the Hotel Max in Seattle, each floor has been given over to a single photographer, whose work plasters the room doors. On the seventh floor, Seattle-based photographer Roniq Bartenen's surreal photograph of a mannequin in Paris welcomes -- or frightens -- guests.