citizenM Menlo Park Hotel is a Lively Riot of Color

With the opening of citizenM Menlo Park, visitors to Meta’s California headquarters aren’t the only ones in luck. Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger employees needing a midday workout or place to crash after a late night of engineering software are, too. The 240-key outpost is the Amsterdam-based hotelier’s 15th in the U.S. (with two more opening in Boston and Miami later this year) and, like all of them, embodies a tech- and sustainability-driven, accessibly priced concept by fellow Dutch firm Concrete. The exterior is a restrained composition of three adjoining masses in glass and aluminum. But the mood skews lively inside: The lobby is a riot of color, thanks to Facebook-blue Antonio Citterio sofas, and lighting, the ceiling a veritable constellation of white Isamu Noguchi pendant fixtures; in a corner is a famous Wiggle chair by Frank Gehry, who designed part of the 250-acre campus in 2018. Guest rooms epitomize efficiency, their modular approach reducing construction waste by up to 60 percent, and the blinds, climate, TV, and color-changing lights controlled by iPad. World-class art unites indoors and out, the latter emblazoned with a diversity-themed mural by Oakland artist Alexandra Bowman.