Art Hotels

Qatar's old Ministry of Interior building did not look like a hotel for most of its life. Brutalist, pale, ringed with deep sculpted balconies, it sat on the Doha corniche as a piece of 1980s state architecture. The conversion kept the shell honest. Those balconies still shade the façade, and the proportions inside stay grand rather than cosy.

Art is not confined to a lobby wall here. Paintings, ceramics and commissioned works run through corridors, stairwells and the floors where guests eat and sit, so the collection reads as part of the building's circulation rather than decoration hung after the fact. Rooms lean warm and layered — patterned textiles, dark timber, brass — against the concrete frame.

Restaurants and a rooftop pool occupy the upper levels, with the water and the newer towers of West Bay in view. The location suits people who want the older waterfront rather than a business district address.

A restored manor house anchors this property, set above the Douro river where the hillsides step down in terraces that have been cut and re-cut for centuries. The estate was a working quinta long before it was a hotel, and the surviving buildings were repaired rather than replaced.

Interiors were handled by a designer with a taste for colour and contrast: bold tiling, layered rugs, contemporary pieces set against original stone and plaster. It is not a minimal hotel. The art and object selection is dense, and it rewards slow walking more than photographing.

Wine sits at the centre of the programme — tastings, a wine library, vineyard walks that explain why the terracing looks the way it does. There is also a large spa, an outdoor pool that faces the valley, and enough garden to lose an afternoon in.

Puligny-Montrachet is small. Stone houses, a square, and vineyards that begin more or less where the last wall ends — some of the most closely studied white-wine ground anywhere. This hotel occupies a cluster of village buildings on that square, which keeps it firmly inside the community rather than set apart from it.

Rooms follow a calm contemporary line: pale walls, natural fabrics, restrained art, good light. The effect is deliberate understatement, letting the older architecture and the view do the talking. Courtyards and a garden link the buildings together.

Dining is serious and tied to the region, as is the cellar. Guests tend to arrive for the vineyards and stay for the quiet; there is very little to do here after dark, which is much of the appeal.