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'I find that boutique hotels have become standardized. When a space is overly designed, it prescribes a certain kind of behaviour," says Christina Zeidler, 37, the Toronto artist and filmmaker who has reinvented the city's Gladstone Hotel as a funhouse of beguiling environments. "I'm interested in things that are authentic."

The Gladstone Hotel is decidedly anti-formula. Anti-politically correct prints and photographs meant to lull you to sleep. Anti-poured-in-place concrete walls and floors that freeze the senses. Anti-exotic woods borrowed from long-suffering rain forests.

What Zeidler and dozens of fellow creatives wanted was a place of artistic difference.

The dream began when the Zeidler family, headed by one of Canada's significant architects, Eberhard Zeidler, and his wife, Jane, bought the Gladstone Hotel in October, 2002, for $2.3-million.

Together with her parents and her sister Margie, a developer and urban activist, Christina transformed the former flophouse into a hotel featuring galleries, halls wide enough to dance in, and 37 rooms transformed by artist and designer teams.

In a globalized world in which we're increasingly meant to drive, wear and consume the same objects of desire, the Gladstone Hotel resists sameness.

Ride the hand-operated elevator to the third and fourth floors: There's a room by a felt artist with small, sensual undulations on the wall. There's the northern room with its faux-fur curtains and log bed. There's the room with hand-painted Chinoiserie paper with some of the characters wearing the CN Tower for a hat.

You can't get more site-specific than that.

"I've done a lot of travelling all over the world, and when I'm travelling, I'm looking for an arts scene. I want to know where the living culture is happening, so I'm looking for hotels that are part of the life of a city," says Christina, who started working at the Gladstone during its restoration.

Her mandate expanded to suit her fantasy.

"Every city that I got to, I fantasized that I lived there -- permanently. The Gladstone opens up its public spaces, lets people enjoy the architecture of the building, and allows people to enter it and have their own story.

"That's what we asked the artists and designers -- pushing the balance between what they wanted to do and allowing that they don't have to take over your life. I'd like to think there's a movement away from chain hotels."

The vision:

You've heard about site-specific art? The historic Gladstone Hotel has transformed itself from a flophouse to a showcase of room-specific, mood-transforming art.

The targets:

Anybody looking to buck Starbucks, sameness and a globalized lifestyle checklist.

The impact:

Instant accessibility to Toronto's undiscovered art scene. Not recommended for those uncomfortable with aesthetic difference.

The price tag:

Room rates run from $155 for an artist-designed hotel room to $375 for the Gladstone's double-storey tower suite.

For more information, visit http://www.gladstonehotel.com.