6 art hotels around the world worth travelling for in summer 2025
Watching over the iconic V&A Waterfront in one of South Africa's three capitals, The Silo is a masterpiece of art and design, both from the inside and out. With stunning views stretching from Table Mountain to the Table Bay harbour, this is where you need to go to discover Africa's largest collection of contemporary African art. The accommodation sits above the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), and is a pinnacle of luxury spanning six floors. From the outside, the pillowed glass windows make the hotel impossible to miss and difficult to ignore.
@thesilohotel_ El Fenn, Marrakech
42 rooms and jaw-dropping visuals, that is El Fenn for you. This boutique property on the cusp on medina and souk brings to life all the 19th-century glory of the building, in the wrought iron, the carved wood, the graphic prints, the marble fountains – a mix of the old and the new with a healthy smattering of avant garde artwork and some mid-century modern works in colours of the land. The property has the romance of the creative, with a library, five inner courtyards and cosy alcoves inviting you to escape. This may just be Marrakech's most stylish hotel.
@elfennmarrakech The Ned, Doha
Spotlighting Middle Eastern female creatives, The Ned in Doha is housed inside Qatar's former Ministry of Interior. Inside, art enthusiasts can find themselves in the presence and power of over 350 artworks by over 100 Middle Eastern artists, most of them women. The collection is sprinkled across the hotel and is permanent. The collection has been curated by Wadha Al-Aqeedi and Elina Sairanen, the co-founders of Mathqaf Arab Museum of Modern Art. On the outside, the architecture will take you back to the brutalist design of the 1970s. Art, inside and out.
@theneddoha The Dolder Grand, Zurich
The Dolder Grand's art collection is an impressive list of names the likes of Salvador Dali, Keith Haring, Takashi Murakami, Joan Miro, and Sylvester Stallone (niche). The beauty of this collection is the variety, more than 100 works from over 90 artists spanning decades and movements. Stay-wise, the views are beautiful, pristine, snowy Alps and a crystalline Lake Zurich await guests. The property itself has undergone expansions that brings together the influence of different eras. The art collection also has a digital guide that will take you deeper into the art history.
@thedoldergrand Bushman Cafe, Abidjan
The most eclectic of this list, this little establishment is championing art, culture and chocolate from the Ivory Coast. Bushman Cafe houses a guesthouse of just 8 rooms, a restaurant, a cafe and a multi-use space. This is a hotspot for not just creatives in the Ivory Coast, but also from around the world, and is home to an exquisite collection of treasures like art, antiques, sculptures, designer lamps and some of the country's finest chocolate; Africa supplies about 70%of the world's cocoa beans – you can see why this matters.
@bushman.cafe Chao, Beijing
Championing arts is what Chao is all about. Located in the heart of the Chinese capital's entertainment district of Sanlitun, this hotel features a massive 30,000-square-foot art center, on-site , no less, and puts up a fantastic avant-garde cultural program all year long. Think sensory exhibits, talks and so much more. The state-of-the-art print shop is one of China's few high-end printmaking studios – a nod to the hotelier's background in art printmaking – with workshops on etching, silkscreen, woodcutting, and more. It continues to produce limited edition prints and guests are welcomed for a private tour.
@chaobeijing
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The Palaeolithic PeriodThe museum experience starts with an introduction to the Palaeolithic period of human history, which began about 2.5 million years ago when early humans started using stone tools. 'By definition, it terminates at the end of the Ice Age, some 12,000 years BP [before present]. Archaeological finds of the earliest phases are only known from Africa, where the human species originated. A million years later, early humans had reached South Asia, probably passing through Arabia,' reads an inscription at the the stone artefacts unearthed from the area is a hand-axe found at Suhaila, estimated to have been made some 500,000 years ago. The Faya CaveAnother standout archaeological discovery from the Palaeolithic Period, or the Early Stone Age, is the Faya Cave. 'Layers from this time around 130,000 years ago have yielded the earliest known evidence for the appearance of 'Anatomically Modern Humans' outside the African continent.'This site has a natural attraction for visitors, not only today but also during many thousands of years in the past when early humans used it as a 'rock shelter' during the Ice Ages,' reads an inscription at the Age refers to any geologic period during which thick ice sheets cover vast areas of land. The most recent major ice age, known as the Great Ice Age or Pleistocene Epoch, spanned approximately 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago, according to Britannica. The Neolithic PeriodWhen it comes to the Neolithic Period, also known as the New Stone Age, the Mleiha area holds particular importance, especially in Southeast Arabia. 'When Neolithic people came to this region around 8,000 BCE, the cold and dry period of the last phase of the Ice Age was just over. During that time, nobody lived in the Inland Basin. The Neolithic people already had cattle, sheep and goats as livestock animals, but did not cultivate plants. … Careful excavations of funeral sites have provided insight into burial practices,' according to the from this period led a nomadic lifestyle and did not leave much architecture behind; however, hearths are the most important indicators of Neolithic life in the Inland Basin. Offering vital clues through carbon dating, fireplaces discovered in the Mleiha area are believed to have been left behind by its Neolithic inhabitants between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago. The Bronze Age When metal began to replace stone as material for tools starting around 3,200 BCE, a new era had emerged: the Bronze on key archaeological sites, this period is divided into sub-phases, including the Hafit phase after graves found at Jebel Hafit near Al Ain, the Umm an-Nar and Wadi-Sug phases, and a final phase known as the Late Bronze Age, offering insights into the transition from the Bronze to the Iron graves are mostly small cairns, circular monuments made of undressed stones with a small grave chamber inside. They are typically positioned along mountain crests. At Emeilah, large Hafit graves were found at the foot of the Jebel, which are collective graves presumably for the Umm an-Nar phase, tombs reflect perfect masonry and feature multiple large Umm an-Nar Tomb close to the Mleiha Archaeological Centre is among the major funeral sites in the area, constructed around 2300 BCE. Used for approximately 200 years, it's among the largest sites from the Umm an-Nar period across Southeast Wadi-Suq phase, from around 2,000 BCE onward, sees the uniformity of funerary monuments start to change. 'Strict burial rules do not exist anymore, and tomb shapes become quite variable. The idea of collective graves continues, but their architecture is different in comparison to that of previous ones,' according to information displayed at the highlight of the era was the oasis culture. The Mleiha plain was very suitable for oasis culture, which not only allowed for the harvest of agricultural plants and fruits all year round but also for the storage of them. Since these times, dates have become the most important staple food. The Iron Age This period, lasting from 1,200 to 400 BCE, in the Mleiha region is well represented in many graves and by the settlement of settlement, a well-preserved agricultural hamlet near Al Madam, points to water management and the use falaj, an ancient irrigation method which used a network of underground and surface channels to move water where it's needed. Faunal remains shed light on the importance of sheep and goat husbandry. Thuqeibah ceased to exist when the water table became too low to be tapped with the means available during that the highlights were the remains of a large communal well found in the settlement area. 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