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25 Ice Cool Designer Hotels
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By: Prue Rushton, Issue 27 – Winter 2006
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(hotels around the world)
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MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL, WHICH ARE THE COOLEST HOTELS OF ALL? WE BRING YOU OUR FAVOURITE DESIGNER SPACES.
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The winds of hotel cool began blowing in 1984 when Ian Schrager shifted his Studio 54 glam into Morgans Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, courtesy of French designer Andree Putnam, and the phrase ‘boutique hotel’ was coined. Fast-forward 20 years and today’s designer hotels come in all shapes and sizes – the odder, the better. Designer hotels are all about visual thrills and pushing buttons, (both electronic and emotional); the latest look is see-through ensuites, the latest locations are often downtown. The rock stars of the hotel world, mix luxury favourites, such as spas, with creative edge to cleverly mastermind new experiences/new ways to escape. Here, in no particular order, we slink through 25 of the best.
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Semiramis Hotel, Athens
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There are worse things that could happen than being shrunk and dropped onto a Thunderbirds set. Semiramis Hotel does the reverse and grows the set up to real-time, human scale. Enter through the pink cube and your world turns pastel pop and high tech. In room, artworks double as bedside lighting, blinds operate by remote, you can scroll LCD messages on your door, the phones are Alessi. Outside, the pool is all curve with teardrop patterns of colour swirling through it. The restaurant seems as much about video projection as the food. With artworks by the likes of Jeff Koons, the hotel is a rather sophisticated giggle overlooking the rich stiffness of Kifissia.
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48 Carilaou Trikoupi Street, Kefalar-Kifissia, Athens, Greece, + 21 628 4400, www.semiramisathens.com or Design Hotels, Toll Free 0011 800 37 46 83 57, www.designhotels.com
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Hotel St Paul, Montreal
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Its intricate, carved-stone exterior says Old Montreal; inside it’s a monument to modern minimalism. A translucent alabaster wall with the letterbox-style insert of fire makes for a dramatic entrance to the lobby and seals the signature ice-meets-fire style of Hotel St Paul. The hotel restaurant, Cube, might be Montreal’s coolest, but its sleek lines have a clubby warmth. The penthouse floor pushes charcoal black walls and polished black floors then mixes in contemporary white custom-made pieces and walnut antiques. Floaty semi-translucent white curtains separate internal spaces and enormous windows open up the view.
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355 Mc Gill Street, Montreal +1 514 380 2222 www.hotelstpaul.com or www.designhotels.com
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Hillside Su, Turkey
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For Australians, the combination of the words hillside and Turkey might not immediately conjure luxury – Hillside Su changes all that. Six giant mirror balls in the long, white lobby – like a meeting of Kubrick and Travolta – point to partying; an expansive wellness and spa centre pick up the pieces. The pool pumps underwater music, but escaping into your own world is best done in your room. Here in the noiseless white rooms you can lie on expansive rectangles and stare directly out across the Mediterranean to the Taurus Mountains.
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Konyaalti, Antalya, Turkey, +90 242 249 0700 http://www.hillsidesu.com
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25 Hours Hotel, Hamburg
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Hamburg is not the kind of city you necessarily associate with hot pink. Nevertheless, it is the highlight colour that turns up in all sorts of places throughout 25 Hours Hotel – even the flower water is pink. But while pink might rev this place to party, it’s white, moulded, retrofuturistic funk that seems to have been the single-minded approach of the crew of design graduates who created the look. The reception desk floats beneath a white porthole like a circular silver- studded biker belt. In the bedrooms, the retro Brionvega TVs appear to have guided the design of round-edged, white furniture. Flashy and fun, it’s the sort of place inhabited by the likes of Heidi Klum.
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2 Paul-Dessau-Strasse, Hamburg, Germany, +49 40 855 070, www.25hours-hotel.de or www.designhotels.com
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Vigilius Mountain Resort, Italy
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There’s not a round log pole or lederhosen in sight. Instead it’s the long, graphic swoop of blonde on blonde batons. Strutting their way across bedroom fronts, they offer rear-window style glimpses of the incredible Tyrolean mountain scape. Accessible only by cable car, Vigilius is a designer experiment in isolated, car-free cool. It’s warmed up inside by red and rust sofas and ottomans, an infinity pool and spa. With nature as its only prop, it’s the cleanlined simplicity that gives Vigilius its edge.
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Vigiljoch Mountain, Lana, South Tyrol, Italy, +39 473 556 600, www.vigilius.it
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Hotel Valley Ho, Arizona
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The web site music alone will get you in the mood: click away to the swing of ‘Fly Me To The Moon’. The recently reopened Valley Ho rightfully retains all the ‘50s low-slung, louche glamour that saw it become a favourite with Marilyn, Bing, Bogart, Cagney and Curtis. Today, executive suites take on penthouse proportions with 1035ft living spaces and 1025ft patios, perfect for margaritas, martinis and mu-mus. An open terrazzo-floor bathroom to the side of the bed becomes a pamper playground with an oversized oval-shaped tub built for two – or, perhaps, Zsa Zsa Gabor.
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6850 E Main Street, Scottsdale, Arizona, +1 480 248 2000, www.hotelvalleyho.com
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Sanderson Hotel, London
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Dali’s red lips sofa greeting you at the entrance is the first sign of kink. Inside, they’ve forgotten walls; long shrouds of diaphanous curtains with paintings ‘hanging’ off them in their place. Ian Schrager and Philippe Starck are the masters of modern hotels – lots of smoke and mirror surprise, a healthy dollop of quirk and not a little sex that lures the ‘A’ crowd. It takes a lot of chutzpah to mix Louis XV furniture with mid-century and modern – the Sanderson has it. The lobby looks like an urban theatre installation and is not for the retiring – the guests are its actors. The bedrooms play-out Casanova with silver sleigh beds and glassed-in bathrooms. In the restaurant, Spoon, you can relax – here Alain Ducasse’s food is the star.
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50 Berners Street, London, England, +44 207 300 1400, www.sandersonlondon.com
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The Outpost, Kruger National Park
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Italy and the outback never had much in common until Enrico Daffonchio was shipped in to design The Outpost in one of the most remote regions of Kruger National Park. Twelve stand-alone suites merge clean-lined concrete and steel into the bush landscape. Fold-away glass sides bring the view in close, the open shower and bathroom sex it up. A gauze mosquito net drops down from the ceiling around the bed and softens the scene. Michelin chef cuisine is served near a lap pool. All being luxe, you might just forget that you came for the wild life.
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Makuleke Region, Kruger National Park, South Africa, www.theoutpost.co.za or www.designhotels.com
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Condesa Df, Mexico
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It is somehow fitting that along this leafy boulevard, Paris’ hottest interior designer, India Mahdavi, should create hotel cool. While the white futuristic shapes of tables and stools could belong in any city, the generous lashings of turquoise place Condesa df firmly in Mexico. As part of the Habita group who also operate Hotel Basica, the experience in producing siesta meets fiesta shows. Most of the 40 whiteand- wood rooms have their own balconies, and whether it’s the rooftop sushi bar or the green mosaic moulded hammam that lures you out again, everything happens here in style.
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Avenida, Veracruz N. 102, Colonia Condesa, Mexico, +52 55 5241 2600, www.condesadf.com
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Hotel Yasmin, Prague
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Beige has never been so, well, interesting – especially as its served up alongside shiny metallics inside Hotel Yasmin. Here, squadrons of mirror ball ceiling pendants drop their Saturday Night Fever dagginess to take on a new sleek. The ‘Cone of Silence’-style café also sees them grouped together inside a circle of metallic beaded curtain. A fallen leaf motif is used throughout – on mirrors, on granite, on walls – but it merely signals that Prague is on the climb to cool.
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Politickych Veznu 12/913, Prague, Czech Republic, +42 234 100 100, www.hotel-yasmin.cz
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Hotel Cram, Barcelona
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Apparently monk robes were the lead for the red, rust and saffron tones of Hotel Cram. However, mixed in with metallics there’s nothing monastic about the seriously grown-up glam of the design. The giant cylinder sculpture that curls around a long central patio like a rib cage is pure Spanish drama. Contrast the controlled, stylish calm of the bedrooms and they seemed to have been designed with siesta in mind. Perfect priming for loungeing long into the night in the moody red bar.
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Aribau 54, Barcelona, Spain, + 34 93 216 7700, www.hotelcram.com or www.designhotels.com
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Kube, Paris
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It’s not the glass cube that you pass through to enter the 19th century hotel façade – we got over that when the pyramid was plonked beside the Louvre. It’s more that Kube has dared to take luxury design to the 18th arrondissement. Philippe Starck shifts into Alessi-meetsshagadelic overdrive to create a new playzone that irresistibly combines sex and giggles. White cube bedrooms have luminously lit bed platforms. The foyer is fur-covered seating with purple jellybean cushions. Maxing the barometer inside the hotel is France’s first ice bar – very cool.
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1-5 Passage Ruelle, Paris, +33 1 4205 2000, www.kubehotel.com or www.designhotels.com
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Hotel Straf, Milan
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For a moment you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve walked into Mr Big’s love lair. The walls are stamped with enormous, graphic, thickly daubed paintings in reds, browns and bronzes. The bed is a massive black lacquer platform. There are glistening, shiny objects everywhere – you almost miss that the base material is concrete. Taking in-room ‘well-being’ to a new level, a few of the 66 rooms offer chromatherapy for the sun-starved, aromatherapy and a massage chair. Like a schmoozy latino, Hotel Straf seems to be aiming for seduction and appears right on target.
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Via San Raffaele 3, Milan +39 2 805081, www.straf.it
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Costa Lanta, Krabi, Thailand
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Polished concrete cubes lose all their severity when they’re set in a lush, tropical landscape. The white spread of extremely wide beds and the soft drip of mosquito nets doesn’t hurt either. With glass or wooden sides that retract, nothing comes between you and nature – including your neighbour. Thoughtfully, the 14 suites accommodation at Costa Lanta have been scattered at angles throughout the tree line. Wooden walkways connect you back to a central pavilion of bar, pool, restaurant and, more indulgently, massage. Located near Krabi in the north west of Lanta Yai Island in the Andaman sea, this place is drift and dream material.
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212 Moo 1 Saladan, Amphur Koh Lanta, Krabi Thailand, +66 2662 3550, www.costalanta.com
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Hotel Puerta America Hotel
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This is designer supernova, where 13 of the world’s edgiest have been allocated a floor each to create from the lobby up. While John Pawson, purveyor of bare minimalism, creates a rather safe blonde lobby, other galaxies have been unleashed above. There’s everything from Ron Arad’s round beds on seven to Plasma Studio’s metal angled maze on four – not for the faint-hearted. Zaha Hadid on one creates a modular all-white or all-black world you’d expect to find Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader sleeping in, while urban architect Norman Foster brings us comfortably back to earth on two with office-style chic.
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Avenida America 41, Madrid, Spain, +34 91 744 5400 www.hotelpuertamerica.com
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Radisson Sas, Rome
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The exterior is so transfixing you could be tempted to spend the night outside staring up at the multicolour fluorescent cubes. That is, if only the interiors of the Radisson SAS, Rome, weren’t so design-heavily good. Who can say why, just a skip from the Colosseum, you’d think of curved white waves for a bedhead design? All that matters is that it works brilliantly in rooms that have the bathrooms perched above on a platform. Sleek and simple shapes are what drive the design right up to the seventh floor lap pool that floats high above Roman rooftops. The total visual effect is, however, colossal.
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Via Filippo Turati 171, Rome, +39 6 444 841, www.rome.radissonsas.com
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The Park Hotel, New Delhi
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You can leave the malaria and tummy tablets at home. The emphasis is on ‘new’ in New Delhi’s first luxury design hotel. The only smidge of Indian inspiration comes with layers of beaded curtains that sexily separate series of spaces throughout and the dabs of colour such as saffron and blue. Furniture is courtesy of mid-century and ultra-modern moulded designs. On two super luxury floors called The Residence, a personal butler and private sauna merely pushes the experience. Dine on Italian in the beaded- blue Mist restaurant and follow the designer flow of water out poolside.
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15 Parliament Street, New Delhi, +91 11 2374 3000, www.theparkhotels.com or www.designhotels.com
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Castell D’emporda, Spain
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Dali wanted to buy this place badly in the ‘70s and one can only wonder what he would have done with it. It takes a clever designer to mix modern back into a 14th century castle without it seeming just plain kinky. Castell d’Emporda envelops you in low-lit corridors painted in warm, shiny, rustic metallics. The view is Tuscany or Provence but the rooms take you on a journey through modern Morrocco, India or China with rich colours and fabrics. The latest additions are Garden Suites with exquisite fabric screens and hammam style baths.
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17115 La Bisbal, Girona, Spain, +34 972 64 62 54, www.castelldemporda.com
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Hi Hotel, Nice
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Anyone who has collaborated with Starck in the past cannot be expected to produce anything but quirk. Designer Matali Crasset is no exception. Hi Hotel rooms scoot around themes, from indoor terrace where mattresses ‘sunbake’ on a zen-style teak platform with trees to digital room where furniture is made out of computer screens and sofas double as loud speakers. With the organic Cantine Bio restaurant being 24-hour self-serve, staying here requires a modicum of initiative. However, the rooftop pool with views out over the Cote d’Azure and the hammam bath bring pamper back in style.
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3 Avenue des Fleurs, Nice, France, +33 497 072 626, www.hi-hotel.net
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Kruisheren Hotel, Netherlands
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The Kruisheren shamelessly marries modern and monastery, replacing Catholic icons with the furniture of design gods like Philippe Starck, Marc Newson and Le Corbusier. You enter through a metallic, Tardis-like tunnel. Giant, half-moon light sculptures and a glass lift strangely match the drama of soaring arched windows. The bedrooms focus on wall-size pop photos and neat Netherlands-style blonde floors instead of bare monastic concrete. Fear no carnal guilt, this hotel is designed to make you feel heavenly.
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Kruisherengang, 19 – 23 Maastricht, Netherlands, www.kruisherenhotel.com or www.designhotels.com
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Hotel On Rivington, New York
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True, it is mildly shocking to step off a skinny sidewalk through into a red-floored, moulded-igloo cave entrance, but you’ve got to admire the nerve. The owner of the Rivington took a punt on the Lower East Side becoming hip. Having been passed the baton from the Meatpacking District, the area has shimmied up with a lot of sexy cafes and bars to explore – it’s now more Nolita than nowheresville. But it’s the views that this glass tower hotel capitalizes on with its in-room, floor-to-ceiling windows that stare out across to the Empire State Building 50 blocks away. Even the loos have a magic view. The terraces are just another little surprise along with the steam showers, zen baths and in-room spa services. All a perfect escape if you tire of the fashion and film crowd parading in the lobby bar.
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107 Rivington Street, New York, USA, +1 212 475 2600, www.hotelonrivington.com
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Hotel Unique, Sao Paulo
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From outside it looks like a giant cement slice of watermelon has fallen from the sky. From inside, this giant curve forms walls the shape of mini skateboard ramps. The ‘pips’ in the watermelon are round bedroom portholes that you open electronically. A frosted glass wall inserted with a flip-around flat screen separates bed and living areas. While the rooms may be blonde wood and white, the spirit behind Hotel Unique is the colour red. For more visual proof grab a mojito from the rooftop Skyebar and lounge beside the blood red lap pool. “Flaring, audacious, beyond imagination” – they said it first. Hotel Unique is not meant to make you feel at home.
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Av Brigedeiro Luis Antonio 4700 Jardim Paulista, Sao Paulo, Brazil, www.hotelunique.com.br or www.designhotels.com
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The Dylan, Amsterdam
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If you want to be quiet and intimate The Dylan provides a sleek black canvas. The design isn’t about keeping you on edge so much as soaking you in style. All the hallmarks of Anouska Hempel (including walls painted 25 shades of white) are here in this 17th century hotel. Choose a bedroom to match your mood – from bold regency stripes in red and white on a four-poster bed through to black lacquer Japanese. A private canal tour in a warm wooden boat is just another cocoon of calm the hotel can wrap you in.
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Keizersgracht 384, Amsterdam, Netherlands, +31 20 530 2010, www.dylanamsterdam.com or www.designhotels.com
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Hotel Q!, Berlin
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Any hotel name that incorporates an exclamation mark you just know is going to be dramatic. Q! could easily be the design prototype for future space station living. Very little of it seems from this planet. The bedrooms are white pods with dark mocha moulded beds, some incorporating bathtubs at angles that allow you to literally slide into bed should you choose. In the spa there’s a sandpit replete with funky red lounges for indoor sun-tanning. The bar continues to blur the lines between what is a wall and what is a piece of furniture, with hotel guests and members-only access. If television’s ‘Space 1999’ was your thing, then this is your hotel.
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Kriesebrechstrabe 67, Berlin, Germany, +29 508 100 660, www.q-berlin.de
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Duomo Hotel, Rimini, Italy
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Dream is a word that is used a lot in describing the freshly opened duoMo Hotel in the historic seaside town of Rimini. Designer Ron Arad has wrapped the old building with a modern glass façade, then made an entrance of bright red pin-ball machine, flipperlike doors. Inside, a chrome donut, tilted at 45 degrees and inserted with bright red ‘step’ shelves, forms the reception. The bedrooms make you wonder whether Ron was fantasising about the Jetsons. Bright coloured bathroom pods with large round portholes form bedheads in 43 white rooms. Ones with external Jacuzzis are Go.
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Via G Bruno, 28, Rimini, Italy, +39 0541 2421 516, www.duoMohotel.com or www.designhotels.com
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