Art Hotels

Art hotels here means buildings made for something else and adapted rather than replaced: a bathhouse, a printing works, a monastery, a postal hall. The interest lies in what survived the change, whether a roof, a stair or a tiled wall, and in how the newer use has been fitted around it.

A stair hall lit from above inside an older city building

Hotel Brach

Rue Jean Richepin, 16th arrondissement, Paris

Type Former postal sorting building

Last look August 2026

A concrete-framed building front in a residential Paris street

Rue Jean Richepin sits in the sixteenth arrondissement, a few streets from the Muette gardens and the Passy shopping lanes. The quarter is residential and even-tempered, built up in stone flats with balconies and shuttered windows. Schools, bakeries and food shops carry the daytime traffic. The river lies to the south, reached on foot in a quarter of an hour.

Before the hotel took it, the building worked as a postal sorting station. Its wide spans and plain concrete frame belong to that use, and the conversion left them in view rather than covering them over. Philippe Starck handled the interior. Rough surfaces, dark metalwork and heavy timber were set against the older structure.

A bakery and a restaurant on the ground floor serve people who are not staying, and the upper terrace is used for eating and drinking. A garden of vegetables and herbs is kept above. Opening hours move with the season and are confirmed with the hotel.

Hotel Oderberger

Oderberger Straße, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin

Type Former municipal baths

Last look August 2026

A vaulted swimming hall with galleries and tiled walls

Oderberger Straße runs through Prenzlauer Berg, north of Mitte, and keeps its nineteenth-century tenement fronts. Cafés, second-hand shops and a small cinema line the pavement. Mauerpark lies at the western end, busy at weekends with markets and open ground. Trams cross nearby on Schönhauser Allee, and the street is level from end to end.

This building opened in 1902 as the municipal baths of the surrounding district. It served that purpose for most of the century that followed, without a break. The swimming hall survives with its vaulted roof, its galleries and its tiled walls, restored and back in use. Guest rooms occupy the wings arranged around it.

The swimming hall admits people who are not staying at published hours, and the ground-floor restaurant and bar open onto the street. The former boiler house is used for events. Times change through the year and are worth confirming with the hotel.

Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp

Leopoldstraat, Antwerp

Type Former monastic buildings in a garden

Last look August 2026

Brick cloister walks around a walled garden in Antwerp

Leopoldstraat lies at the southern edge of Antwerp's old centre, beside the botanical garden that gives the street its character. Antique dealers, galleries and quiet houses stand along it. The cathedral and the Meir are a short walk north. Traffic thins in the evening, and the garden gates close, leaving the block unusually still.

Monastic buildings on this site grew over centuries around courtyards and a walled garden. Chapels, cloister walks and hospital wings were repaired and joined into one hotel, with brickwork, stone thresholds and timber ceilings left visible. Newer volumes fill the gaps between them. The garden remains the centre of the whole plan.

Several restaurants and a bar on the site take outside guests, and the chapel is used for gatherings. Parts of the garden can be walked by visitors. What is open on a given day depends on private bookings, so it is confirmed with the hotel.

The Slaak Rotterdam

Slaak, Kralingen-Crooswijk, Rotterdam

Type Former newspaper printing works

Last look August 2026

A wide-windowed industrial building front east of Rotterdam centre

Slaak follows the line of a filled harbour arm east of Rotterdam's centre, between the Oostplein and the Boerengat water. The surrounding blocks are post-war housing with shops at street level. A market hall, the Maas embankment and the old harbour are within a short walk. The street carries steady but unhurried traffic.

The building housed the printing works of a Rotterdam newspaper, and the hotel keeps that frame: long floor plates, wide windows and the heavy structure the presses required. Concrete and steel stand bare in the public rooms. Lettering, signage and photographs from the printing years hang through the ground floor.

The ground floor holds a restaurant and bar that open to the street, with a long communal table used through the day. Meeting rooms occupy part of the former press hall, behind the public rooms. Hours differ between weekdays and weekends.

Duque de Loulé

Avenida Duque de Loulé, Lisbon

Type Nineteenth-century town house

Last look August 2026

A stucco town house front with tall windows on a Lisbon avenue

Avenida Duque de Loulé runs between Marquês de Pombal and the Avenida da Liberdade, in a working part of central Lisbon. Offices, small restaurants and older shopfronts share the street. Parque Eduardo VII rises to the north-west, and the metro stops at either end. Slopes here are gentle by the standards of the city.

Built as a city residence in the nineteenth century, the house later spent a long spell in office use. Its stucco front, tall windows and stair core survive. The conversion inserted rooms behind them without moving the street elevation. Portuguese tiles, stone and worked plaster appear in the entrance and on the stair.

A restaurant and a bar on the ground floor take in people who are not staying here. A small interior courtyard is used for eating when the weather allows it. The reception hall stands open to visitors through the working day.

Hotel Bachaumont

Rue Bachaumont, Montorgueil quarter, Paris

Type Building of 1900 reopened as a hotel

Last look August 2026

A glazed roof over an entrance hall with mosaic flooring

Rue Bachaumont sits inside the Montorgueil quarter, a knot of pedestrian streets in the second arrondissement. Food shops, cheese sellers and old cafés fill rue Montorgueil a few doors away. The covered passages and the former market ground of Les Halles lie to the south. Evenings here are busy, and mornings are given over to deliveries.

The building dates from 1900 and was drawn as a hotel by the architect Charles Lefebvre. It closed later and stood in other use for decades before reopening under its old purpose. Glazing over the entrance hall, mosaic floors and ironwork survive from the original scheme. All of it was restored during the reopening.

The restaurant and bar on the ground floor open to the street and fill at lunch. The entrance hall can be walked through by visitors. Hours are shorter on Sundays, and the hotel confirms them by telephone or by email.

acrypic.org is independent and descriptive. Building histories were taken from published material and from the operators' own accounts, and both can be revised. No hotel here has any connection with this site, which sells nothing and arranges no stays. Rooms open to visitors may close for private use, so check before travelling.