design hotels

Theme Hotels: Shrill Nights

This makes the former uniformity of hotel rooms disappear. Gone are the days when you did not even like the little jokes of paid overnight accommodation (soap, etc.), because everything smelled the same anyway, felt similar and had a similar structure. In themed hotels you do not even have time to consider whether the ashtray fits the table cloth. The operators keep us busy with manifold new impressions.

offer their guests a completely unique world. Sometimes you have to pass the pass at a reception desk and pay a forced exchange, sometimes you sleep under ceiling paintings, which, however, show no chubby naked angels, but erotic film scenes. When asked what that means, designer Jean Nouvel responds with a phrase that applies to all themed hotels: "The bed is not just for sleeping."

Design Hotels: A bed in the factory

The SORAT Hotel Humboldt-Mühle Berlin in the granary.

Perhaps not quite so flashy, but equally untypical of a traditional understanding of 'hotel' are design hotels: cool, classy and expensive. Or? There are a few that are not only beautiful, but also relatively inexpensive A North German brick building. A hall the size of a cathedral. Felt sheets as curtains, pipes in front of bare walls. Linen, leather, dark wood. Every vase is a statement, every apple a jewel. The Gastwerk has established itself inside an old gasworks in the west of Hamburg. A new example of the trend in the hotel industry for more space, more light, less flourish, less plush. The only drawback: The square in the traditional Hamburg working-class district of Bahrenfeld transforms into a creative district with engineering offices, multimedia companies and advertising agencies - around it is still built eagerly. But the room rates are (still) moderate. 'Gastwerk', Daimlerstraße 67, 22761 Hamburg, Tel. 040/89 06 20, Fax 8906220. Booking via Design Hotels, Tel. 0130/81 49 75, Internet: www.designhotels.com.

Addresses Themed Hotels

The Hotel, Lucerne

The Hotel, Sempacherstr. 14, CH-6002 Lucerne, Tel. 0041/41/226 86 86, www.the-hotel.ch. The French architect and conceptual artist Jean Nouvel wanted to build on a tradition and painted in the hotel the ceilings with sensual scenes from works by Peter Greenaway, Pedro Almodóvar and Federico Fellini ("Casanova"). For a sensual night.

City Lodge, Paulsborner Str. 10, 10709 Berlin, Tel. 030/891 90 16, www.propeller-island.com, (only by prior appointment). Experimenters, who want to participate in the barren life of underground artists, find here a hostel full of associations. The "castle room" is so called because the bed is surrounded by Playmobil knight castles, and in the "Gnome Room" with 1.40 meters ceiling height can only stand up who is a dwarf. For a night in which one can ponder the meaning of art. Core Water Wonderland, Griether Str. 110, 47546 Kalkar, Tel. 028 24/91 00, www.kernwasser-wunderland.de. He has never been filled with fuel rods, the Fast Breeder of Kalkar. Now you can even sleep in the most expensive ruin of progress and visit the cryogenic reactor wall the next day. A night in the past of the future. Hollywood Media Hotel, Kurfürstendamm 202, 10719 Berlin, Tel. 030/88 91 00, www.hollywood-media-hotel.de. At Artur Brauner's Filmhotel, the hall looks like Sunset Boulevard, and the regular rooms are named after famous movie stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Mae West, and Marilyn Monroe. For the night that beats more than it holds. Newgrange Hotel, Bridge Street, Navan, County Meath, Ireland, Tel. 00353/469074100, www.newgrangehotel. The house is reminiscent of a horror castle from an Edgar Wallace film, with large candelabra candles, waving velvet curtains, wingback chairs and thick carpets. For a ghostly night.

Address Design Hotels

Hotel Hopper in Cologne: a former monastery

Berlin: 'Sorat Hotel Humboldt-Mühle', listed granary at a small harbor on the Tegeler See. Half an hour to Ku'damm, but idyllic and original. An der Mühle 5-9, 13507 Berlin, Tel. 030/43 90 40, Fax 43 90 44 44, www.SORAT-Hotels.com. Munich: 'Ritzi', renovated Wilhelminian style house in Haidhausen, 25 rooms with different mottos from Art Deco to the South Sea, also a Feng Shui room (# 44). www.hotel-ritzi.de Maria-Theresia-Str. 2a, 81675 Munich, Tel. 089/419 50 30, Fax 41 95 03 50,. Cologne: Hopper - Hotel et cetera, in the walls of a former monastery. 49 unobtrusive-elegant rooms (cherry wood furniture, eucalyptus parquet, marble bathroom), restaurant in the former chapel of St. Maria Regina zum Rosenkranz.Brüsseler Str. 26, 50674 Cologne, Tel. 0221/92 44 00, Fax 92 44 06, www.hopper.de. Bochum: 'Art Hotel Tucholsky' with in-Café of the same name. 15 rooms in time zones from Art Nouveau to Postmodern. Address for actors, theater and musical visitors. In the middle of the 'Bermuda Triangle', the trendy nightlife district. www.art-hotel-tucholsky.de, Viktoriastrasse 73, 44787 Bochum, Tel. (0234) 964360, Fax 6878421