IN BED WITH ART AND COMMERCE

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Even while you sleep, there’s art in Berlin. The 10-year-old Arte Luise Kunsthotel in Berlin’s Mitte, across from the Spree River and the Reichstag Building, is a former East Berlin artist hotel that offered ateliers for struggling painters and sculptors during the Communist era.

“We started out with 11 rooms, coal heating and one show,” says co-founder Mike Buller, with a laugh. “Artists were living and working here, and one artist set up his room rather nicely; other artists rapidly followed suit. It was a tug-of-war between the new capitalist Germany and the old Socialist one.” Now art and commerce sleep together in some 48 rooms, some with sock sculptures climbing the walls and others with a 2-meter-long bird beak over the bed. New groups of artists come in every two to three years to design the rooms; the lobby shows off a range of works, including a giant camel’s nose and the painted stripes by Markus Linnenbrink. “Elvira Bach’s wall painting in Room 101 is reportedly worth about $132,000,” says Buller, who pays the artists a commission each time guests stay in their rooms. Plus, visitors are encouraged to visit the artists’ studios. (Dieter Finke has sold quite a few sculptures out of Room 104.) The Kunsthotel’s “Kunst” rooms are usually full, particularly during the Art Forum Berlin fair (luise-berlin).

In need of a nightcap? Next door to the Kunsthotel, there’s Habel Weinkultur, a wine bar and restaurant established in 1779, where sommelier Steven Kelly will fetch you a 2000 La Tâche, Grand Cru Domaine de la Romané from its 3,000-bottle cellar.

If an artist hotel is not your preference, purchase a copy of Berlin Hotels & More (Taschen, Köln, Germany; taschen.com), which provides a sumptuous guide, including upscale resting spots and watering holes like the Savoy Hotel and the
super-modern Hotel Q.