
Three distances,
eighteen hotels
Start with what you can touch, end with the horizon. Every hotel here gets a page of its own, and every page moves outwards in the same order: the thing within reach, then the building it belongs to, then the street, shore or slope it stands on.
- 01 · Art HotelsThe Okura TokyoA 1962 lobby rebuilt inside a new tower
- 02 · Art HotelsFontainebleau Miami BeachMorris Lapidus and his staircase to nowhere
- 03 · Art HotelsBauhaus DessauSleeping in the studio block of a design school
- 04 · Art HotelsHotel Nacional de CubaA 1930 hotel on the headland above the Malecón
- 05 · Art HotelsHotel New YorkThe former head office of a transatlantic shipping line
- 06 · Art HotelsPalácio BelmonteA palace grown around Moorish towers and Roman stone
- 07 · Capsule HotelsCapsule Hotel Asakusa RiversideCapsules stacked two high beside the Sumida
- 08 · Capsule HotelsPod 39Cabin-sized rooms in a 1916 Midtown building
- 09 · Capsule HotelsPodShareOpen bunks in a shared room, no doors anywhere
- 10 · Capsule HotelsSleepboxSleeping cabins standing inside an airport terminal
- 11 · Casino HotelsMontreal Casino & HotelWorld's fair pavilions on an island in the river
- 12 · Casino HotelsFallsview Casino ResortA resort standing on the slope above the falls
- 13 · Casino HotelsRiver Rock Casino ResortA resort with its own marina on the Fraser
- 14 · Casino HotelsCasino Rama ResortA lakeside resort on Chippewas of Rama land
- 15 · Ice HotelsIcehotelRebuilt every winter from Torne river ice
- 16 · Ice HotelsHôtel de GlaceNorth America's only ice hotel, winter season only
- 17 · Ice HotelsKirkenes SnowhotelA snow building on a fjord near the Russian border
- 18 · Ice HotelsIglu-DorfA village of snow domes high above the valley
The order runs one way for a reason. What is within reach tells you how a place is made: the shell of a capsule, the blind that closes it, the block of ice under the hides. The building tells you why it looks the way it does and what stood here before. The country around it answers the last question, which is why anyone would travel this far to sleep in it. Read backwards and the detail loses its meaning.
Sections: Art Hotels, Capsule Hotels, Casino Hotels, Ice Hotels. How the guide is put together is explained in About This Guide.