Art Hotels Capsule Hotels Casino Hotels Ice Hotels How We Group Contact
Ornate bronze and purple plaque reading Precision and Heritage, with five scores

northwavegroups · twenty hotels, six groups, four sections

Precision and heritage

A group is a short answer to one question: what do these hotels have in common? Twenty hotels are read here in six of them, across art hotels, capsule hotels, casino hotels and ice hotels. Every hotel belongs to exactly one group.

01THE BUILDING HAD A TRADEThree hotels in buildings that were built to do another job first.3 hotels 02THE DESIGN CAME WITH THE PLANThree hotels where the architecture was in the brief from the start.3 hotels 03THE ROOM IS A CABINFour hotels where the unit is a berth and the building is shared.4 hotels 04FOUR IN CANADA, ALL BESIDE WATERFour Canadian resorts, each of them standing at the edge of water.4 hotels 05REBUILT FROM NOTHING EVERY WINTERThree hotels raised again each winter and lost again each spring.3 hotels 06SNOW WITH SOMETHING AROUND ITThree hotels where the snow building belongs to something larger.3 hotels

A group here is a reading, not a ranking. It is not a standard, not an award, and not a category issued by anyone but the two editors who keep this guide. Inside a group the hotels are equal, and the order they are printed in is only the order we suggest reading them. A hotel is placed in one group and stays there, because a hotel that fits everywhere explains nothing.

All twenty

How the six groups were chosen is set out in How We Group.