A Design-Lover’s Guide to the Most Stylish Hotels in Copenhagen
Copenhagen has always been a darling in the world of Scandinavian design. While many people might think first of the clean architectural lines and elegant functionality of the Danish modern style, the capital’s best boutique hotels offer a wider aesthetic range, one that is more representative of the wonderfully eclectic design pastiche that is Copenhagen. In addition to the pure Danish modern, there are airy minimalist lofts decorated in light woods and soft furs and more historic, luxurious properties filled with delicate molding, ornate fireplaces, and sumptuous fabrics. If you know which hotels to book, you can transform your visit into a fully immersive Nordic design experience. Here, five hotels worth a visit during Copenhagen Fashion Week, be it for a night, or just a nightcap.
Photo: Courtesy of Hotel D’Angleterre1/5Hotel D’Angleterre
Set along one of the city’s most prestigious thoroughfares, Copenhagen’s “White Lady” has been synonymous with Danish hospitality for 250 years. Tasked with dressing the 90-room grande dame, creative director Alan Evensen—who worked with owner Else Marie Remmen to design every element of the accommodations from door handles to drapes—takes several trips a week to the flower market in Valby to stock up on blooms for the hotel’s celebrated floral displays. Think: still lifes featuring dark purple calla lilies, blue vanda orchids, candles, and fur throws; or Georg Jensen’s silver and steel candlesticks and bowls filled with short-stemmed blush pink roses. And starting in April, he’ll have his own in-house studio in the hotel’s basement. For this year’s Fashion Week, Evensen has designed displays for the Asger Juel Larsen and Federico D’Angelo shows, as well as an “alley” of lilac trees for Stasia’s catwalk. After the shows, you might find designers and models lingering at the hotel’s Michelin-starred eatery, Marchal, or cozy “Krug Embassy” designated champagne bar Balthazar.
Photo: Courtesy of SP342/5SP34
Made up of three renovated townhouses in the bohemian Latin Quarter—an area of the city where high-ceilinged lofts, cozy restaurants, and bars rub shoulders with vintage stores and 1500s university buildings—hotel SP34 is a surprise bastion of modern design. The rooftop terrace, penthouse balconies, and sky-lit bathrooms offer panoramic views of Copenhagen’s rooftops, the green-spired city hall, and the tower of Christiansborg Palace. And along interior corridors, amber streetlights illuminate speckled gray-black carpeting inspired by the stained Sankt Peders Stræde asphalt. In each of the 118 rooms, beds designed specifically for the hotel feature individual rounded oak headboards that cradle you as you work or watch TV. SP34 is also a great place to hang out. Guests can book 8:00 p.m. screenings at the hotel’s 25-seat private cinema nightly; jazz nights and regular art exhibitions are held in the open-plan, living room–style lobby lounge.
Photo: Courtesy of Hotel Alexandra3/5Hotel Alexandra
Rooms at Hotel Alexandra will transport you back to the days when girls wore hip new PVC and polyester miniskirts and listened to the Beatles and Bob Dylan on transistor radios. Rooms are decorated in either a ’50s or ’60s style, filled with period furniture and even vintage magazines scoured from attics and flea markets. But perhaps most notably, in designer-inspired suites throughout the hotel, you’ll find stunning museum-quality furniture being showcased the way the designer originally intended. The deluxe room includes two Finn Juhl NV-53 chairs (which typically fetch over $36,000 a pair at auction). The striking purple and orange corner suite celebrates the designs of Verner Panton (and is Christian Louboutin’s lodging of choice when he’s in town). The Collector’s Suite, reimagined every three months by gallery owner Anders Petersen and general manager Jeppe Mühlhausen, takes guests back to the ’70s, and most of the interior is available to purchase. If you’re lucky enough to snag the Suite this Fashion Week, you can make your post-show drinks at a large glass carboy and lounge on a Hans Olsen black leather sofa while watching a vintage Bang Olufsen TV.
Photo: Courtesy of Radisson Blu, Royal Hotel, Copenhagen4/5Radisson Blu Royal Hotel
When the 22-floor Radisson Blu Royal Hotel opened in 1960, it was the tallest building in Denmark and the country s largest hotel. Run by Scandinavian Airlines (“SAS” still adorns the top of the towers), it was the city’s most stylish place to stay—Jacqueline Kennedy; the Rolling Stones; former presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Clinton; and the Dalai Lama are all noted in the guest book. Behind the towering glass edifice—which continuously shifts from gunmetal gray to steely blue and deep green as it reflects the changing sky—designer Arne Jacobsen created sleek, Jet Age interiors, many elements of which remain today. Jacobsen’s iconic Egg and Swan chairs, specially designed for the hotel, and his curved staircase that pushed the envelope in terms of what was technically feasible at the time, are set off by cool expanses of marble and dark wenge wood. Tables at restaurant Alberto K, named for the hotel’s first GM, are laid with AJ cutlery—a design first introduced in 1957 and used at the hotel’s eateries throughout the ’60s. While the hotel’s rooms have been refreshed several times, Room 606 has been maintained in its original state. It is painted in lightshades of green with maple wood–paneled walls and period furnishings like The Drop chair and the 3300 sofa series, which was designed for the airport terminal in 1956, and features a vanity counter with a built-in makeup mirror, radio, and intercom system.
Photo: Courtesy of Nimb5/5Nimb
With just 17 rooms, Nimb is one of the city’s smallest hotels and arguably the most striking. Set in a 19th-century, Venetian marble–clad Moorish palace in the contemporary Tivoli Gardens amusement park, each room is warm and welcoming, featuring fireplaces and an eclectic mix of modern pieces and antiques, including inviting four-poster beds piled high with luxurious linens. In the hotel’s public spaces, traditional Moorish latticework pays homage to the building’s original exotic aesthetic, while the use of Douglas fir timber and Öland stone—used throughout the centuries to build churches and castles—nod to its Danish roots. And if you are looking for a sip or a bite, the walls of the basement wine bar, Vinotek, are lined with a carefully curated collection of wines and champagnes; while a second bar, set within the property’s original high-ceilinged ballroom, serves a lavish weekend brunch and provides a cozy place to curl up by a mammoth fire after dark.