It’s no longer enough to have a hotel room with a window to the world; today’s travellers want spectacular art inside as well as stunning vistas outside. Mark Ellwood checks out 10 of the top artistic boltholes

Most hotels have a few photos or paintings scattered around the lobby and on corridor walls – it’s a quick, simple way to telegraph chic sophistication at low cost. But a few spots have gone further, transforming themselves wholesale into temples or tributes to the art world. Broadly speaking, they fall into two distinct categories: one, hotel-asgallery, where the owner repurposes public spaces expressly to showcase his or her collection; the other, hotel-as-artwork, where an owner invites artists to create site-specific works or act as guerilla interior designers. And though the two types are equally glamorous, their origins are radically different.

The hotel-as-gallery phenomenon started, according to Joan Warren-Grady, in the late 1980s. And she should know: Warren-Grady is an art adviser who, in the past 20 years, has become renowned as the foremost hotel collection curator, having worked on more than 200 properties. She believes art hotels emerged during the economic downturn of the late 1980s, when investors – many of them in then recession-proof Japan – snapped up bargain basement real estate and art in equal numbers and threw them together as much from circumstance as design. When the condo-hotel concept emerged in the 1990s, art became even more important. “Developers could have unique collections which identified their properties, and it creates a powerful visual memory of the hotel and the guest’s stay,” Warren-Grady observes.

The origins of the hotel-as-artwork concept are both older and harder to pin down. This idea is the next step on from the tradition where long-stay, lowcost hotels were go-to garrets for penniless artists. “The Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan was the original ‘art hotel’,” explains New York Post travel editor David Landsel. “It was always arty, and an artist hangout. Somewhere along the way, people must have decided it was a good idea to let artists loose on the entire design.” Indeed it was: hotels from Cape Town to San Francisco have followed the Chelsea’s accidental lead.

But art hotels of both types are proliferating across the world now – and it’s thanks to a wider cultural shift, according to Helen Allen. She runs Pulse, one of the foremost art fairs in the world. “Art is the new luxury brand: being seen to be collecting, being a part of the insider world and this international circuit is appealing on so many fronts,” she explains. “It’s not only about the art work, but about the events that go on surrounding it: lectures, performances, parties.”

So what’s next for the art-hotel hook-up? It’s far from inconceivable that licence-happy institutions like New York’s Guggenheim Museum might rent their names to Starwood et al for a series of co-branded ultra-luxe hotels. Then again, perhaps someone’s beaten them to it: artist Lincoln Schatz, at the last Pulse fair in Miami, built a room onsite that he offered hourly, like a low-rent hotel, to visitors who could then be filmed doing whatever they felt best described them, be it cooking, boxing or – yes – sleeping.

Until Marriott signs Schatz for a consulting gig, guests will have to settle for one of the 10 hotels we’ve listed: each spectacular, they’re our pick of the world’s current crop of art-obsessed boltholes.

TOP 10 ART HOTELS

CHAMBERS

1 Browse a top-notch batch of iconic, in-yourface art from the enfants terribles YBAs – Sam Taylor-Wood, Tracey Emin, Gary Hume and co – at this Minneapolis hotel. The cutting-edge collection housed here is the personal haul of owner Ralph Burnet. There’s an onsite Kunsthalle for temporary local shows and curated artwork scattered throughout the Rockwell-designed rooms too.
www.chambersminneapolis.com

ARTE LUISE KUNSTHOTEL

2 Where better to find a curated Kunsthotel, than Berlin, currently the art world’s buzziest city? This 50-room spot in Mitte started off as an artist squat a decade ago; the impromptu residents made over their digs and it was eventually converted to a commercial hotel, preserving much of the original artwork. Dieter Mammel’s room, with an oversized oak bed intended to give guests the illusion of being a child in an adult’s world, is a standout.
www.luise-berlin.com

GLADSTONE HOTEL

3 This ramshackle Victorian building, in the heart of Toronto’s arty Queen Street West neighbourhood, was a demolition-ready flophouse until a local family snapped it up and tapped local artists to renovate its rooms as part of an open call (a few were then rewarded with artists-inresidence programmes). Almost 40 rooms are now idiosyncratically transformed, with the programme ongoing. There’s also onsite weekly life-drawing classes and gigging bands in the bar during cocktail hour for maximum art world cred.
www.gladstonehotel.com

LANGHAM PLACE HOTEL

4 China’s the hottest market for contemporary art so it’s only fitting that this Hong Kong high tech/luxe hotel should showcase the 1,500- strong collection of local, contemporary art amassed by owner, cardiologist-turned-property tycoon, Dr Lo Kar-shui. Each of the 42 floors is themed (function rooms on seven and eight are surrounded by celebratory works) and guests can either use the free in-room guide to navigate or book one of the regular, free 30-minute tours with a hotel staffer.
hongkong.langhamplacehotels.com

SOHO HOTEL

5 A quirky hideaway tucked into a mews in the heart of London’s medialand – owner/designer Kit Kemp is known for fusing frou-frou and futuristic touches for a stylish and unexpected interior (think chintz with chunky Lucite). It’s also a showcase for Kemp’s equally offbeat art holdings, both inside the 100 or so rooms and in the common areas. Don’t miss Alexander Hollweg’s muscular, neon-coloured mural in the onsite restaurant.
www.firmdale.com

THE HENRY JONES ART HOTEL

6 Tasmania might seem an unlikely site for a gallery-hotel – that is, were it not for the Tasmanian School of Art, which is one of Australia’s strongest design colleges. The property, a converted waterfront factory, is festooned with works by both current students and alumni (there are free tours every Friday), though don’t miss the handmade Tasmanian timber furniture in each room – it’s just as wow-worthy as the artwork.
www.thehenryjones.com

ERESIN CROWN HOTEL

7 The Sultanahmet neighbourhood is Istanbul’s most historic, so it’s not surprising that an archaeological Aladdin’s cave of Byzantine treats was unearthed when this hotel was being built almost 10 years ago. The museum-quality finds are now displayed throughout the public spaces, and architectural elements like walls and columns were smartly integrated into the overall design. It’s as if the British Museum had morphed into a hotel.
www.eresincrown.com.tr

HOTEL DES ARTS

8 A true hybrid of art gallery and hotel – right down to the snooty, gallerina-esque desk clerks at check-in. Most of the rooms at this San Francisco hotspot were surrendered to local artists for them to customise as they wished (number 303’s anime-style fantasy from graffitist Buff Monster is a standout), though there are a few cheaper, artist-free alternatives. The lobby is a commercial gallery for emerging talents, with dozens of canvases for sale.
www.sfhoteldesarts.com

DADDY LONG LEGS HOTEL

9 This 13-room budget hotel is stashed above an Afro music store in the heart of Cape Town’s CBD. Each of the smallish spaces has been wackily made-over by local artists, poets, photographers and other creatives, such as architect Bert Pepler, whose ER-inspired, blood-red-walled spot comes complete with saucy nurse’s outfit. A cute curatorial touch: all rooms are TV-free to keep guests focused on the art, though there’s a sceney onsite bar-patio for mingling with fellow black-clad, art-loving guests.
www.daddylonglegs.co.za

CAVALIERI

10 The lobby of the five star Cavalieri in Rome is home to a staggering Giovanni Battista Tiepolo triptych that the hotel’s low-profile owner Guido Terruzzi snapped up for $8 million (€5m) at auction recently. It’s the centrepiece of his $700m Old Master collection which, along with period furniture, is largely displayed through the common areas, though each of the dozen flouncy suites features a masterwork guests can enjoy in private.
www.romecavalieri.com