Design Hotels has announced the addition of eight properties to its portfolio, spanning a brightly colored modernist delight set in the mountain ranges and desert landscape of Tucson to a pared-back minimalist retreat overlooking the Genkai Sea on Japan’s Iki Island.
Set in Japan’s culinary capital, Zentis Osaka is a 16-story, 212-room hotel that is making waves for its French-Japanese cuisine and inspired world-class design. A newly built property, the hotel was designed by Philippe Starck protégé Tara Bernerd and stands out for its merger of a natural color palette with exposed brick and timber beams. Heading northeast, the focus shifts to art at Node Kyoto, a 25-room industrial-chic hotel that feels like an art collector’s residence. Here, exhibitions, pop-up shops and guest gallerists foster a community spirit that is complemented by an in-house restaurant offering a farm-to-table bistro-styled menu. Further south, Japan’s Iki Island offers a hideaway from city clatter. With just 12 rooms, Iki Retreat Kairi Murakami offers sublime sea views, hot spring baths and abundant fresh seafood.
It’s an altogether different mood at The Tuxon Hotel, a 112-room desert modernist gem located “a stone’s throw” from Downtown Tucson, Arizona. Programming including live music, local art, outdoor movie screenings, tastings and craft workshops keep guests entertained at the adventure-forward hotel, while an indoor/outdoor bar draws both visitors and locals. There’s a similar vibe at Austin Proper Hotel, Proper Hotels’ first foray outside California and a hub of commercial and cultural creativity in the city’s 2nd Street District. Long-time Proper collaborator Kelly Wearstler was tasked with designing the 244 rooms, which combine an eclectic mix of ceramics and artwork with hand-raked cabinet inlay tiles created by local Rick Van Dyke and intricate string wall art by Magda Saveg.
To chillier climes, Moscow’s Richter Hotel has just seven rooms but also a gallery, a studio, a theater and a radio station in a city-central mansion. Regularly playing host to chamber concerts, film screenings and lectures, the hotel is also home to an 8,600-square-foot garden with an amphitheater for an escape in the heart of the city. In Switzerland, the 33-room Art House Basel is similarly low-key yet with plenty of impact. A new platform for art on Basel’s famed Steinenvorstadt, the newly built hotel carves a modern space into a part of the city most renowned for its Old Town and is tied together with sophisticated interior design by Andrea Caputo and Salome? Fa?h. Nature Eco Residences Santorini rounds out the collection of new members, with 15 suites that have abundant use of stone and wood. Awash with vintage deco items, earth tones and handmade furniture, the hotel is defined by straight lines, crisp whites, and the deft curves typical of Santorini architecture.
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