Art Hotels

Granite boulders break through the grass in this corner of Maldonado, and the architect Isay Weinfeld left them where they lay. His bungalows tuck in between the rocks, low and flat-roofed, as if the hillside had simply made room.

Concrete, wood and long panes of glass do the talking. Rooms face open countryside rather than the coast at Punta del Este, a short drive away. Fasano, a name born in São Paulo, has long treated design as part of the welcome; this is the brand at its most rural.

Kämp opened in 1887, facing the Esplanadi park in central Helsinki. Over the following decades, composers, painters and poets treated its restaurant as a second living room.

That reputation outlived the building's first life. After years given over to offices, the hotel was reconstructed and reopened in the late 1990s with its grand interiors brought back. Chandeliers and marble now share the rooms with Finnish design pieces. It belongs to Marriott's Luxury Collection.

Diamond is a fair clue. Behind a classic Parisian façade close to the Opéra, this Maison Albar hotel leans into facets, polish and deep jewel colour.

The interiors are the exhibit: a design-led scheme rather than a corridor of framed prints. Outside, the 9th arrondissement supplies the rest. The Palais Garnier, the grands magasins on boulevard Haussmann and a cluster of theatres are all reachable on foot.

Check-in happens at a brass rhinoceros. Few lobbies introduce themselves so quickly, and Hotel Vagabond, set in an Art Deco building on Syed Alwi Road, rarely lets up after that.

Jacques Garcia, the French decorator, layered rooms and salon with velvet, saturated colour and a crowded collection of art and objects. The hotel has invited artists to stay and work through a residency programme, and the salon hosts talks and performances. Little India and Kampong Glam lie a short walk in either direction.