Four categories · eleven hotels
Hotels that do one thing unusually well.
Art, capsule, casino and ice hotels — described plainly, one step at a time.
Art Hotels
Hotels where the art is part of the building, not a lobby afterthought. Some grew out of friendships with painters; others hand whole rooms to artists.
Open art hotels- Hotel Sanssouci Vienna
- La Colombe d'Or
- Arte Luise Kunsthotel
Capsule Hotels
A bed, a screen, a locker and a shared bath. The format started in Osaka and still does one job very well: a clean night for very little space.
Open capsule hotels- Capsule Inn Osaka
- Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510
- Hotel Zen Tokyo
Casino Hotels
Full-service hotels with rooms, restaurants, theatres and a gaming floor under one roof. Read as hotels first; the casino is one feature among several.
Open casino hotels- Montreal Casino & Hotel
- Fallsview Casino Resort
- River Rock Casino Resort
- Casino Rama Resort
Ice Hotels
Rooms carved from river ice, rebuilt by artists each winter. One property sets the standard for the category, and this index lists it alone.
Open ice hotels- Icehotel
How the index works
Selection
A hotel gets in when its category defines the stay. The art has to matter, the capsule has to be the room, the ice has to be real.
Verification
Descriptions stick to what a property says about itself and what is widely known. Nothing here is a review or a verdict.
Scope
Four categories, kept short on purpose. Prices, availability and bookings stay with the hotels themselves.