Joan Ockman begins a discussion of Arne Jacobsen’s SAS Royal Hotel, Copenhagen with a description of what it would have been like to arrive in the lobby in its original state in the 1960s. After reviewing Jacobsen’s work before the hotel, she discusses the site, design and initial hostile response in Copenhagen. Ockman discusses Jacobsen’s control of every element of the hotel’s design, while pointing out moments when Jacobsen subverts the seemlessness of the thoroughly-designed environment with paradox and wit. She concludes by speculating that Jacobsen’s hotel might have been a source for the bewildering modernist locations of Jacques Tati’s Playtime.