Special hotels

People traveling to a big city are not necessarily looking for a place in the countryside to stay overnight. Nevertheless, a city tour increasingly offers the opportunity to spend the night in special places. Whether in a former monastery or in a restored industrial wasteland, by restaging old stock with modernity and a pinch of luxury, many a hotel stay becomes so exciting that one almost forgets a city tour.

Innovative hotel concepts can be found in almost every city. If you book yourself into a city break away from the hotel chains, then the big city life in daring patterned wallpaper or deep purple wall paint along with bold seating furniture does something to you. It brings inspiration for home and fires the imagination about what can also be done in your own four walls. A stay in a boutique hotel or a wacky concept in old industrial wasteland brings much more inspiration than a visit to the furniture store. Hotel Endsleigh in Devonshire awakened by Olga Polizzi or her Hotel Tresanton in a former yacht club as well as the Graace Hotel in Luxembourg City or the Blow up Hall 50/50 in Poznan are treasure troves for design ideas.

Material

What format do you need? A newsworthy report, an entertaining reportage, a short travel tip or a picture gallery? At the international photo agency Alamy you can see all photos of Georg Berg on the subject of special accommodations. Clicking on one of the images below will take you directly to the agency image.

City hotel, boutique hotel, art hotel photos

Those who travel to a big city are not necessarily looking for nature as a special overnight destination. Nevertheless, cities increasingly offer the opportunity to spend the night in special places. Whether it is a former monastery or an industrial wasteland, the clever combination of new and old and the re-staging of old stock makes some hotels so exciting that one almost forgets the city tour.

Inspiration source hotel

Olga Polizzi is an interior designer and head of design for the Rocco Forte Hotel Group, which she built with her brother Rocco Forte. She breathed new life into Hotel Endsleigh in Devonshire U.K. in 2004. The Duke of Bedford’s hunting residence was badly in need of renovation. There was no heating system and no running water. Today, the hotel is an idyll in a fairy-tale forest and every room and almost every nook and cranny in the house surprises with creative decorating ideas. In Poznan, an entire hotel is transformed into an interactive work of art. The Blow up 5050 on the old factory premises of the Stary Brewery. The inspiration for the hotel’s name comes from Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 cult film Blowup, which is also the name of the installation of the same name by Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, who has also exhibited his work at London’s Tate Modern and the Venice Biennale. The number 5050 stands for at least 50 percent art enjoyment, which guests can experience in addition to the usual amenities at this hotel. The Renthof in Kassel is the oldest building in the city, and since the 2017 Documenta year, the Renthof has been a 55-room hotel. The charm of the old walls is already sprayed in the staircase and in the hallways. What the craftsmen first cursed becomes later their pride and joy. Right angles are the exception. Everything is crooked here. Made-to-measure instead of mass-produced goods are required. The 300-year-old late Baroque staircase is deliberately preserved in its existing crookedness. It creaks in a friendly way and on the landings one can stop and look at the facade layers of the past centuries. Small glimpses from times of the large construction site, where every step was also coordinated with the monument authority.