Interior Design: Vienna’s Room 66

A unique bastion of the city’s interior design scene, Hotel Altstadt Vienna offers an eclectic mix of rooms by a prominent array of interior designers, each paying homage to true Vienna living.

Room 66 is the work of Vienna-born and architecturally trained Gregor Eichinger, a movie buff and proponent of cool hidden tech who has rooted his interiors in an appreciation for Hotel Altstadt’s commitment to its city. Lamenting the globalized monopoly of hotel style that erupted after the second world war, when American businessmen lay their heads in most hotel rooms and all interiors became the same, room 66, as indeed the whole of Hotel Altstadt, celebrates Vienna’s own aesthetic, past and future.

Chillaxing in the middle of the room, Gregor has designed the bed to be the focal point, with views out in every direction. A design feature that pooh-poohs typical sleeping spots stacked against the wall, you can look out the high, gorgeously proportioned window into the city, or indeed in the very same direction at a projected film, choosing from a collection that includes Vienna’s essential 1950s Cinema Noir.

How better then, to immerse yourself in Vienna, this great bastion of style and design, than wander its streets, close the door back at base, look straight out the window at the skyline and snug down watching cultural masterpieces from your very own, floating, design ode.

It is also prominent in clever interior design features, from a striking ‘intelligent wall’ that allows light to flow right through it to higher than usual handles which prompt you to fully appreciate each interior detail and, in Gregor’s own words, “interact with the room fittings consciously, and thus generate yet another positive memory.”

Chillax in your floating bed surrounded by a soothing, avant-garde world of cool yet cosy fabrics as designed by Herzog & de Meuron for Kvadrat in a range of smoky greys and blues, wander the hotel’s art-gallery corridors and gaze out at the distant view. This Austrian hub is so totally engrossing, and so totally ‘Vienna’, you may not need to get out of bed at all. 

Editor’s Journal Edit

Read up on other Hotel Altstadt Vienna design dens in our Travel Journal, such as room 67 created by Vienna Design Week Director Lilli Hollein, the Lackner Suite by creative guru Andreas Lackner and Svenkst Tenn’s Josef Frank Suite. Tour the city in style with our Vienna Design Guide, peruse a coffee shop ode to all things beyond Sacher and a peek at Ankerbrotfabrik, Vienna’s contemporary art hub, before looking cool with Freitag’s new store and fashionista Femme Maison.