Hotel Meliá International, Vienna

 Hospitality Design Special


By Pari Syal 
Photography: Courtesy the architect

Hotel Meliá International, DC Towers, Vienna

The newly opened Danube City (DC) Towers, Austria’s highest building by Parisian architect Dominique Perrault houses the Spanish hotel chain Meliá International with the ‘57 Restaurant & Lounge’ offering a breathtaking 360-degree view over Vienna.

Launched on the same day as the Towers, Feb.26, 2014, the new ‘Meliá Vienna’, is as striking as the building itself. The uniquely designed 250m high skyscraper has a spectacular glass facade and the hotel is anointed with floor-to-ceiling windows, offering an amazing view of the Danube River and the city skyline. 

Reception with its feature element - Spiral Staircase

Lobby Bar-Cafe-Restaurant

Lobby wining-dining with a stunning view of the Vienna skyline

Your very first steps into the lobby and up the spiralling staircase take your breath away. As the arresting element of the lobby restaurant, ‘The Flow’, the imposing staircase also serves as an entrée to the large ballroom on the first floor. The hotel boasts 1,079 sq m of flexible event space, grand ballroom, and 8 partially combinable conference rooms, apart from being completely equipped with signature restaurants and state-of-the-art amenities, integrated with cutting-edge technology.

Meeting & Event Room

Presidential Suite Lounge

Presidential Suite Master Bedroom I

Meliá Vienna with its new standards of international lifestyle  occupies 18 of the 58-floor DC Towers and houses 253 exquisite rooms, including 40 design suites and 200 sq m Presidential Suite with 180-degree panoramic views.  The top two floors of the tower are occupied by the ‘57 Restaurant & Lounge’ that offers a spectacular 360-degree view over Vienna.

Family Room

 Presidential Suite Master Bedroom II                                                          Presidential Suite Living Room

The interior is a fusion of minimalist design and monochromatic colour schemes in a purist ambience. An intense sensory experience prevails as one experiences a play of chiaroscuro elements throughout, prancing on a material and textural palette that is rich, and uber chic. The quiet, subdued colour schemes, fine materials and the visual qualities of the folded façade, which gives the tower its distinct liquid, immaterial character, reflecting on a malleability constantly adapting to the light, are ingeniously mirrored in the interiors.  

Presidential Suite Master Bathroom

In fact, the physicality of the interior spaces is tangible with its exposed or rather ‘not-hidden’ structural framework. Stone and metal used in lobbies and circulations contribute to the tower’s generous and reassuring physicality. “The aim is to get the basic horizontality of the city and the public space to coincide with vertical trajectories,” says the architect.

The DC Tower is also the first sustainable or ‘Green Building’ in Austria.