Section · 01–06

Art Hotels 6

Six hotels where the building itself is the work, not a frame around it. Each one was designed or converted by an architect whose material choice is the whole argument: poured concrete, layered gneiss, blocks of salt, weathered lenga. Hotels with art on the wall but nothing to say about their own construction are not in this section. Neither are museums with rooms attached as a commercial afterthought.

A concrete gallery wall with a single glass opening onto the sea.

Materials on this page

TIMBER 3 SALT 1 STONE 4 GLASS 6 STEEL 1 CONCRETE 3

Naoshima, Kagawa, Japan

Benesse House

Made of

CONCRETE GLASS STONE

Benesse House above the Seto Inland Sea, Naoshima.

The fabric

Tadao Ando poured the building in concrete and left it as it came out of the formwork. The board marks and the tie holes are still on the surface, and nothing is plastered over. Long glass openings are cut through the concrete where the ground falls away towards the water. The site itself is stone: the hillside was terraced rather than levelled, and gallery and hotel share one structure.

The setting

Naoshima is an island in the Seto Inland Sea, in Kagawa Prefecture. The hotel stands on a wooded slope above the shore, with the water and a scatter of low islands in front of it. Ferries, art sites and a small port town fill the rest of the island.

The stay

The room is a concrete box with one wide glass side facing the sea. Walls are bare, edges are sharp, and the artwork hangs on the raw surface. Sound is short and dry inside. At night the water is most of what reaches you through the glass.

Plan aheadNaoshima is reached by ferry from Uno or Takamatsu, so fix the crossing before the train or the drive, and travel light between the piers.

File updated · March 2026

Marseille, France

Hôtel Le Corbusier

Made of

CONCRETE GLASS TIMBER

The Unité d'Habitation on Boulevard Michelet, Marseille.

The fabric

Rooms occupy part of Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation, a slab lifted clear of the ground on concrete legs. The concrete is left rough, and the grain of the shuttering runs along the corridors. Each apartment opens through a full-height glass wall onto a loggia painted in flat colour. Timber lines the fitted furniture and the floors, and softens a shell that is otherwise concrete throughout.

The setting

The block stands in its own strip of parkland on Boulevard Michelet, in southern Marseille. Pines screen it from the road. The city runs north towards the old port, and from the upper floors the sea and the coastal hills are both in view.

The stay

Rooms are long and narrow, following the section of the original apartments. The loggia belongs to the room rather than being added to it, and the colour comes from its painted end wall. Concrete is close to the bed. Traffic on the boulevard stays a low, steady presence.

Plan aheadThe block sits south of the centre; a metro and bus connection or a short taxi ride reaches it, and arriving by car needs a plan for parking.

File updated · March 2026

Vals, Graubünden, Switzerland

7132 Hotel

Made of

STONE CONCRETE GLASS

Layered gneiss at Vals, with the hotel above the baths.

The fabric

Vals sits on a gneiss quarry, and the stone turns up everywhere: in the thermal baths beside the hotel, in retaining walls, in paving. Peter Zumthor stacked that stone in thin layers for the baths, and the hotel is read against them. Concrete carries the older hotel blocks from an earlier era of building here. Glass opens the newer rooms towards the valley wall and the water below.

The setting

Vals is a village at the end of a narrow valley in Graubünden, in eastern Switzerland. Mountains close it on three sides. Water is the local business, between the thermal springs, the river and a bottling plant, and the settlement is small enough to cross on foot.

The stay

Rooms differ by wing. Some are lined in stone and dark timber; others are pale and quiet, with a glass wall onto the slope. Nothing in either is loud. The valley is steep enough that the view is mostly rock, sky and whatever the weather is doing.

Plan aheadVals is reached by train to Ilanz and then a post bus up the valley, or by car on a single mountain road that ends at the village.

File updated · February 2026

Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel

The Jaffa

Made of

STONE GLASS STEEL

Limestone arcades of the nineteenth-century hospital, Jaffa.

The fabric

A nineteenth-century French hospital and its convent make up the older part, built in local limestone with round arches and heavy stone jambs. The restoration kept that stone visible and left the chapel intact. A newer wing stands beside it in glass and steel, deliberately unlike the old walls. Steel also frames the openings that were cut through the historic fabric to join the two.

The setting

The hotel stands in Jaffa, the old port at the southern end of Tel Aviv, in Israel. Stone lanes, a flea market, workshops and small cafes surround it. The Mediterranean is a few minutes west, and the modern city begins immediately to the north.

The stay

Rooms in the old building have deep stone reveals and arched windows; rooms in the new wing are glass-fronted and flat-ceilinged. Both are quiet in the way that thick walls make things quiet. Noise from the market reaches the lower floors in the evening and then stops.

Plan aheadJaffa is walkable from central Tel Aviv along the seafront, and a taxi is the simple answer once you have luggage with you.

File updated · February 2026

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

Palacio de Sal

Made of

SALT TIMBER GLASS

Salt-block walls at the edge of the Salar de Uyuni.

The fabric

Blocks cut from the salt flat make the walls, and loose salt covers the floor. The blocks are stacked dry and bonded with a salt paste, so the building is made of the ground it stands on. Timber carries the roof structure and the frames of the furniture. Glass fills the openings that face the flat, where there is nothing outside to block the light.

The setting

The hotel stands at the eastern edge of the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, the largest salt flat in the world. The horizon is level in every direction. In the wet season a film of water turns the whole surface into a mirror of the sky.

The stay

Rooms are white on every surface: salt walls, salt floor, salt blocks under the beds. The air is dry and still. Outside there is nothing for sound to bounce off, so nights are very quiet, and the glass frames a horizon with no features in it.

Plan aheadUyuni is the base town, reached by road, bus or a short flight, and the altitude here is high enough to be worth a slow first day.

File updated · January 2026

Torres del Paine, Chile

Tierra Patagonia

Made of

TIMBER GLASS STONE

Weathered lenga cladding above Lake Sarmiento.

The fabric

Lenga timber from the region clads the whole building, and the wind has already turned it silver-grey. The form is long and low, following the ridge line instead of sitting above it. Glass runs along the lake side in a continuous band. Stone from the site holds the base and the terraces, so the building looks as though it starts underground.

The setting

The hotel stands above Lake Sarmiento, on the eastern edge of Torres del Paine in Chilean Patagonia. Grassland, guanaco and the towers of the massif fill the view. Wind is constant here, and the nearest towns are several hours away by road.

The stay

Rooms are lined in the same lenga timber as the outside, with a glass wall towards the lake. Furniture is low and the ceiling follows the line of the roof. Wind is audible against the building most of the time, and the light over the water changes quickly.

Plan aheadPunta Arenas or Puerto Natales are the arrival points, and the last stretch is hours by road, so a transfer or a hire car has to be arranged.

File updated · January 2026

Materials are what published sources say a building is made of; we have measured nothing and tested nothing ourselves. The month at the end of an entry is the month we last went back through those sources.

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