Museums grab the headlines and private homes pay the bills, but for architects, hotels are a unique way to let the audience get up close and personal with the work. Don’t believe us? Try spending the night at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao or Philip Johnson’s Glass House, and let us know how it goes.
Remota
Puerto Natales, Chile
When you've journeyed to the end of the earth, a man-made monument would feel out of place. Remota, by German del Sol, is modern architecture at its most self-effacing.
Hotel Americano
New York, New York
The Americano’s simple white interiors recall those of its Chelsea art gallery neighbors, but the gleaming metal screen that covers its face is anything but minimal.
Conservatorium
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Amsterdam’s historic music conservatory retains its classic façade, but inside it’s been totally re-imagined, put to new use as the ultra-modern Conservatorium Hotel.
h2hotel
Sonoma Valley, California
Northern California's Sonoma Valley finally comes of age: this modern classic in the Northern California wine country leaves Tuscan villas and Provençal farmhouses as nothing but a distant memory.
Claska Tokyo
Tokyo, Japan
It’s no longer the new kid on the block, but Claska, out in Tokyo’s creative-focused Meguro district, is still a pilgrimage site for design groupies and boutique-hotel junkies.
New Hotel Athens
Athens, Greece
The Brazilian-born Campana brothers mix hyper-modern forms with favela-inspired salvage installations, radically transforming the interior of Athens’s New Hotel.
La Purificadora
Puebla, Mexico
Ricardo Legorreta’s modernist makeover of a 19th-century water processing plant is one of Puebla’s new architectural wonders, with a rooftop pool that’s not to be missed.
Kameha Grand
Bonn, Germany
Karl-Heinz Schommer’s striking wave-shaped structure and Marcel Wanders’s whimsical neo-baroque interiors combine to create a luxury hotel for the next century.
Saffire Freycinet
Tasmania, Australia
It takes an impressive building to compete with the scenery at Tasmania’s Coles Bay, and the stingray-shaped main lodge at Saffire Freycinet does its best to rise to the challenge.
Opposite House
Beijing, China
Though the concept is inspired by ancient Chinese hospitality, Beijing’s Opposite House, by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, is as modern a hotel as any we’ve seen.
