Hotel Des Academies Et Des Arts

Hotel description

An utterly traditional Thirties hotel in Paris’s Montparnasse district is now, after a radical update, the very picture of the modern boutique hotel. With just twenty rooms, the Hotel des Académies et des Arts owes some debt to the cozy Left Bank lodgings of times past; but the bold colors, graphic décor, even the downbeat electronic music playing in the living-room/lobby make it clear that this is a design hotel of the new breed.

Not just any design hotel either, but one with a bit of personality. Four distinct decorating schemes make the most of rich textures, quality materials, chic retro chairs and a palette of reds and violets to liven up the taupe backgrounds — a far cry from the off-whites and off-the-rack Danish modern furnishings that fill the average design hotel. The rooms are still smallish — some things about the Left Bank never change — but the simplicity of the design goes a long way toward avoiding any feeling of claustrophobia.

A wellness room offers massages, facials and body treatments, and a screening room showing artists’ videos — and that’s about it for services. There’s no restaurant, just a Continental breakfast; the location, though, on a quiet street just south of the Luxembourg Gardens, means you’re never far from a host of worthy options. And the location offers other charms to art enthusiasts — Modigliani’s studio was on this street, and the likes of Paul Gauguin and Alberto Giacometti studied across the way, at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.