Italy isn’t one of the world’s great destinations for design hotels in the contemporary sense, but what the country does have is some of the finest examples of classic 20th-century hotels; some in amazing original condition, some tastefully resorted. Here are eight of our favorites.
Picture: Bauer Hotel Lobby – Courtesy of Bauer Hotel
Ausonia & Hungaria, Lido di Venezia (1907)
When the Ausonia & Hungaria opened its doors in 1907, Venice’s Lido was the most elegant of seaside resorts. With its faux-Renaissance facade, covered in one of Europe’s largest expanses of Liberty (Italian Art Nouveau) ceramic tiles by artist Luigi Fabris, the Hungaria, as it is generally known, is the Lido at its most exhibitionist. Paris-trained Eugenio Quarti, the design darling of the Belle époque glitterati, oversaw the interiors and supplied the polished ebony furnishings that still grace the reception rooms and the 80 bedrooms. Despite a 2011 makeover, which threw some dubious contemporary colors into the design mix, the Hungaria still breathes the spirit of high-society Adriatic beach holidays. Doubles from €68.
Picture: Ausonia & Hungaria – Courtesy of Ausonia & Hungaria
Boite Hotel, Dolomites (1954-62)
Italy had its fair share of enlightened industrialists in the 1940s and 1950s, and idiosyncratic Enrico Mattei, the boss of the ENI state fuel company, was one of the most visionary. His concern for his workers’ welfare extended to commissioning architect Edoardo Gellner to create a company holiday camp in the Dolomites, with bungalows, hotels, cute pitched-roof chalets, and a campsite for employees who preferred canvas. One of the few parts of the complex to have retained, in large part, its original interiors and furnishings is the the Corte delle Dolomiti Resort (formerly the Boite Hotel). Sensitively restored, it appeals to a mix of families and hipsters with a yen for 20th-century architecture. The resort church by Carlo Scarpa is an extra treat. Doubles from €80.
Picture: Boite Hotel – Courtesy of Boite Hotel
Punta Tragara, Capri (1920)
French architect Le Corbusier designed Punta Tragara shortly before 1920 as a seaside house for a private client. The villa was carved into the cliffs overlooking Capri’s sea-lashed Faraglioni rock stacks, and painted in a striking shade of salmon pink. It was the Allied high command’s HQ during the Second World War before becoming a hotel in the early 1970s. Today the 44-room property has pleasant but unremarkable classic-contemporary decor, but the building’s pedigree and structure shine through, especially in the view from the pool terrace. You wouldn’t necessarily recognise Le Corbusier in the arched windows and sweeping ceiling vaults, but as a modernist statement, it’s difficult to ignore. Doubles from €370.
Picture: Punta Tragara – Courtesy of Janos Grapow
Parco dei Principi, Sorrento (1962)
Architect and designer Giò Ponti threw caution to the wind when he was commissioned to build a 96-room seaside hotel in Sorrento in the early 1960s. Perched above the waves and set in its own private park, the Parco dei Principi is a playful modernist triumph in shades of blue and white—a radical design choice at the time. The blue ceramic tiles that play off all that bianco were made to Ponti’s zigzag, floral, geometric designs in the nearby pottery town of Vietri sul Mare. Every room has a subtly different pattern. Ponti also designed the rich cherrywood furniture. Outside, a classic white lido-style diving board looms over a swirling sea-water pool. Doubles from €109.
Picture: Parco dei Principi – Courtesy of Royal Group Hotels and Resorts
Pensione Briol, Alto Adige (1928)
The decorative Tyrolese craft tradition meets Bauhaus rigour in Pensione Briol, an incongruous 13-room property in the Italian Alps. The chalet is the obsessive work of local artist Hubert Lanzinger who married into the Settari family—who remain the Briol’s owners—in the 1920s. Best known for his adulatory paintings of Hitler, Lanzinger also created every single piece of cutlery, wooden furniture, and pretty much everything else in the hotel, all of it still in use. His no-frills spirit still hovers: The floors, made from wide pine boards, are still scrubbed with water and soap; the water in his oval swimming pool remains bracingly icy; and there are just two showers, both in the corridor, with the supply of hot water depending entirely on whether the sun has been shining on the solar panels. Doubles from €90.
Picture: Pensione Briol – Courtesy of Mathia Michel
Hotel Vittoria, Brescia (1932)
To translate his vision for the Hotel Vittoria into reality, architect Egidio Dabbeni had to lock horns with his powerful rival Marcello Piacentini, the man responsible for gutting Brescia’s Medieval quarter and transforming Piazza della Vittoria into a triumph of rationalist-brutalist urban planning. In stark contrast, inside the 65-room Vittoria the style is stately neo-classical, while the geometrical plaster wall moldings suggest a touch of Art Deco. Gorgeous Murano glass light fittings, designed by Napoleone Martinuzzi and made by Venini, illuminate reception rooms, while a selection of Empire furniture lends the bedrooms an air of elegance. Doubles from €150.
Picture: Hotel Vittoria – Courtesy of Hotel Vittoria
Bauer, Venice (1949)
Shipbuilder Arnaldo Bennati bought Venice’s old Bauer-Grunwald hotel in 1930, then shut it down for most of the 1940s for a complete overhaul. He commissioned naval architect Marino Meo to extend the tottering 18th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal. The facade is not Venice’s most beautiful, but Meo’s naval background shows in the lobby, which looks every inch the glamorous ocean liner. On its reopening in 1949, the Bauer was state of the art: It was the only Venice hotel with central heating and air-conditioning. A bar was added to the seventh floor—controversial in a city where building heights are tightly regulated—which became a magnet for celebrities and the local smart set. Doubles from €280.
Picture: Bauer Hotel Ballroom – Courtesy of Bauer Hotel
Principe di Piemonte, Viareggio (1921)
One night in 1917, much of the centro storico of the Tuscan seaside town of Viareggio went up in flames. This clean sweep offered the perfect opportunity to plan a beach resort of airy vistas and Art Nouveau elegance. The linchpin was engineer Giuseppe di Micheli’s Principe di Piemonte hotel (then known as the Select), completed in 1921. This Art Deco 104-room property with spectacular sea views still dominates the waterfront. Rooms vary in style depending on which floor you’re on, such as the second-floor Art Deco rooms and the fourth-floor Empire rooms, which best channel the hotel’s dress-for-dinner vibe. A delightful beach club, with ranks of neatly arranged deck chairs and umbrellas, was added in 1938. Doubles from €110.
Picture: Principe di Piemonte – Courtesy of Principe di Piemonte
8 masterpieces of 20th-century design