Hotels where the walls, the rooms or the whole building were made with artists in mind.
Art hotels come in different shapes. One runs a free museum on its ground floor. One gave each suite to a different artist. One wrapped its entire facade in a mural.
What links them is intent. The art was planned as part of the stay, not added later as decoration. Each entry below is a working hotel first.
Entry 1
ARTOTEL Thamrin
Jakarta, Indonesia
You notice the building before you find the door. Its facade is covered in a huge black, white and pink illustration, one of the most recognisable walls in central Jakarta.
Inside, the idea continues. A group of young Indonesian artists worked on the lobby and the guest rooms, so each floor carries a different hand. A small gallery on site changes its shows through the year, and a rooftop bar looks out over the city. Jalan Sabang, a street known for its food stalls, is a few minutes away on foot.
Mural facade
Artist-designed rooms
Rotating gallery
Rooftop bar
Entry 2
Hôtel Particulier Montmartre
Paris, France
Few visitors to Montmartre know it is there. The hotel occupies a nineteenth-century private mansion set back from the street, behind a gate and a walled garden.
There are only five suites. Each was conceived by a different artist or designer, so no two rooms share a mood. The garden was laid out by a noted French landscape architect and feels far from the crowds near the basilica. A bar and salon on the ground floor serve guests and visitors in the evening.
Five suites
Walled garden
19th-century mansion
Evening bar
Entry 3
21c Museum Hotel Durham
Durham, North Carolina, United States
Part bank tower, part museum. The hotel sits in a 1930s Art Deco high-rise in downtown Durham, built for a bank and later reworked for guests.
Its ground-floor galleries show contemporary art and are open to the public without charge, so locals wander through as often as guests. Exhibitions change over time, and works also turn up in corridors and lifts. The restaurant takes its name from the building's banking past.