Boutique hotels
Boutique hotels often house 10-100 rooms, featuring differing unique settings with an upscale interior. You will often find the rooms to be in differe...
Copenhagen has long been an international design hub and sleeping in style kind of comes with the territory. With heaps of high-quality design experiences on offer, indulging in Danish design 24/7 at chic hotels and cleverly designed guest houses thus seems like the perfect add-on.
To accommodate design aficionados from near and far, here’s an update on where to dream design in Copenhagen.
At the authentic retro-style boutique hotel Hotel Alexandra, a world-famous Danish mid-century vintage furniture is the recurring theme. Combined with textiles, wallpapers, and other period gems, Alexandra is a real-time-capsule of Danish Modern, showcasing some of the very best pieces of design-loving Danes from the 50s and 60s, some of which are very well-known, others not so much. Try booking, e.g., the enfant terrible of Danish design Verner Panton’s suite in psychedelic colours, shapes, and patterns – and you are guaranteed to get your senses stimulated, whilst perhaps reviewing your initial thoughts on what Danish design entails.
Following a huge renovation in the 2010s, the grand old dame at Copenhagen’s historic Kongens Nytorv Square, Hotel d’Angleterre, is a brilliant example of how to master a juxtaposition of stately and grandiose Victorian design and New Nordic Cool design trends. This 5-starred hotel simply oozes contemporary classics, with elegant materials in light and tones, exclusive surfaces, and subdued decorative effects, that beautifully accentuate the outstanding rooms within its walls. Balancing elegance with a feeling of being at home, the ‘white lady's proud traditions are thus substantiated and carefully integrated with Danish and Nordic design.
Bonus info: The 5-starred property on Kongens Nytorv Square also boasts the Michelin-starred restaurant Marchal, a champagne bar, and a gorgeous new cake shop, La Maison.
As with Kanalhuset, its sister hotel Hornbækhus in North Sealand is another design gem, decorated with personality and diligence created by Danish design studio EEN. The charming seaside resort with 51 rooms is in the local seaside town of Hornbæk and is full of details and areas to explore and great culinary skills to go – and worthwhile a design trip off the beaten track.
At Kanalhuset in the nearby scenic Copenhagen district of Christianshavn, the interior is contrastingly inspired by Danish design from 1930 to the 1970s. Kanalhuset’s 12 boutique hotel rooms are individually designed and decorated by the Danish interior design company EEN, who scoured through auctions, flea markets, and private collections to find just the right items to suit the aesthetic of the old canal house. Its furniture has thus been handpicked, reupholstered, and treated with care to bring out the natural patina and entirety of the beautiful old building located along the city’s scenic waterways.
The Audo is an exciting hybrid space operating as a boutique hotel, restaurant, café, concept store, material library, work, and event space located in Copenhagen’s booming industrial and residential district, Nordhavn. With only 10 refined boutique hotel suites this is a real luxurious experience. The Audo also acts as the headquarter of the Danish furniture brand MENU, which just also happens to be behind the interior in both its rooms and all other spaces of the property. In its concept shop, you will find all the objects found throughout the property for sale. So, whatever you feel like taking home, whether it be the Aiayu robes, Frama bath products or the ceramic pot on your coffee table, it is available in the Audo concept store. And if the budget does not allow for a stay at the hotel, simply grab breakfast or lunch in the lovely restaurant Hâidan.
Copenhagen’s The Darling Guest House is a rather new and utterly unique, single residence in the city’s historic centre, curated to feel like a sophisticated home with the best of Danish design and contemporary art. At The Darling, one can lounge in the Spanish Chair by Børge Mogensen, or in the iconic Egg by Arne Jacobsen. When eating you will be sitting at Poul Kjærholm’s circular PK54 table, by the light of the Septima pendant lamp by Poul Henningsen. In the study room, write a postcard to send home while sitting at the Nyhavn desk by Finn Juhl, or lounge in the double daybed by Børge Mogensen with a nice stack of design books. Go to bed whilst enjoying the bespoke wallpaper exclusively designed for the venue by Danish artist Helene Blanche and snuggle into the sustainable bedlinen from Aiayu. The kitchen by Københavns Møbelsnedkeri might tempt you to want to prepare an in-house dinner, but off it is into one of the world’s best gastro hotspots too!
Bonus info: The Darling Guest House was created by Darling Creative Studio, creators of the cutting-edge international fashion magazine ‘DANSK’ available in over 20 countries.
Close by lies a different kind of sleeping possibility at TheKrane. Usually, when thinking of industrial machines and old harbour docks, one does not rush to the luxury hospitality market. Yet, that is exactly what TheKrane in Nordhavn is. What used to be an industrial coal crane in the city’s harbour area is now a luxury two-person retreat, a one-room/two-person hotel, and probably one of the most unconventional and exclusive hotel experiences on offer in the capital. The room at the very top of the crane, the old engine room, has been rebuilt into a super modern, minimalistic room with only the very best Danish design furniture on display. Access to two terraces also allows guests to enjoy both the Copenhagen sunrise and sunset as well as extraordinary views of the old industrial harbour, a sailing club, the Øresund Strait, and the beautiful Copenhagen coastline.
The Radisson Collection Royal Hotel is a pioneer within design hotels in so many ways. It is almost certainly the world's first design hotel and the only hotel by the renowned Danish designer and architect Arne Jacobsen, making it a true home of Danish modernism. Constructed in 1960, the hotel still dominates the city skyline, and its interior design impresses visitors to this day. For a full design treat, book a guided tour of the iconic ‘Room 606’. It still stands today as it did in the 60s with all the original interior designed by Arne Jacobsen himself.
Bonus info: The hotel is conveniently located across the street from the top attraction Tivoli Gardens, and just a 2 min. walk from both the City Hall Square and the central station.
Another unique option is also the nearby Vipp Chimney House created by Danish product design company Vipp. Vipp’s hotels are not defined as hotels, but as tailored and curated design destinations out of the ordinary and filled with VIPP’s take on design. Here, a part of the experience is to engage with the interior, and once you have checked in at a VIPP hotel, it is fully booked - you will be the only guest(s)! The Vipp Chimney House is a historic landmark in the city’s Østerbro district. Initially built as a water pumping station with a towering chimney in 1902, the building was reborn from ruins by Danish architect, Studio David Thulstrup. While retaining the charm of the architectural shell, the original, industrial space has been extended with a cutting-edge, modern overlay and equipped with Danish Vipp products and curated art pieces. With two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a large open plan kitchen, dining and living space occupying the 200 m2 space, you can stay up to four adults at the property and only a short walk from both the sea at Svanemøllen beach as well as great public transport options to the inner city.
Speaking of Vipp, a brand-new design hotel option is to check in at the one-of-a-kind hotel, the Vipp Pencil Case. Located in a Bauhaus-inspired former factory building from the 1930s, this hotel is fully booked as soon as you check in, as it only holds one unique hotel room. Vipp Pencil Case is in a former pencil factory on Islands Brygge, which is Copenhagen’s former industrial harbour area and is nowadays part of the attractive Copenhagen waterfront. The 5th ‘one-room-hotel’ by Vipp has been carefully renovated by established Danish interior designer Julie Cloos Mølsgaard, who concentrated on giving the old pencil factory a tactile treatment and making it more than ready to accommodate design-conscious visitors from across the world and a quiet sanctuary in the city.
Bonus info: Adjacent to Vipp Pencil Case, the company also decided to sharpen the famously old Danish Viking pencils of the former factory even further and to draw up their very first Vipp Supper Club with room for up to 26 guests.
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