Celebrated for her fusion of conceptual art and constraints, Sophie Calle is an internationally renowned artist. In 1981, she took a job as a chambermaid for the Hotel C in Venice, Italy. Hiding her camera and tape recorder in a mop bucket, she not only cleans the hotel rooms, but gathers evidence of the hotel guests' lives. The Hotel is a forensic conceptualist's inventory of the ordinary and extraordinary lives of this particular hotel.

Photographs of floral bedspreads, unkempt closets, open suitcases, pairs of shoes, jewelry and love letters are included throughout the book, each item belonging to the unknown hotel guests.