Berlin

Orania is in Berlin's very cool Kreuzberg neighborhood. The building itself is an impressive sight. From 1913 to 1924, the ground floor was home to iconic café Oranienpalast, concerts, and caberets. In 1934, the Jewish owners at the time had to sell the property below market value in order to be able to emigrate. The building changed ownership several times. In 1995 it was registered as a national monument. In 2014, Sattler Architects and Dietmar Mueller-Elmau began turning the space into a hotel with forty-one rooms and suites, a small restaurant, literary salon, bar, and concert stage. The hotel opened in 2017. In place of a standard lobby, there's an inviting living room (with two fireplaces) that spills into the open kitchen, bar, and mini stage that features local Berlin musicians. The design is a bit ecletic, with materials coming from around Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. One of the best parts about staying here: Breakfast is served every day from 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The rooms range in size. A goop editor stayed on the second floor in the very lovely and spacious "Orania.50," which has…

This new space in Berlin for post-war German modernism sparks interest mainly for the building’s checkered past—before WWII it was constructed as a studio for one of the Nazi party’s predilect artists, Arno Breker. Under the watchful eye of architects Petra and Paul Kahlfeldt, who are charged with its restoration, the studio has been re-cast as a cultural institution. The opening show and subsequent exhibitions will feature both East and West German art in tandem, as an attempt to reconcile these two streams of German modernism which were segregated for many years after the war. Photo: Robert Conrad. Courtesy Kunsthaus Dahlem