Gloriette @ Hinge N° 276/2019

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Gloriette Guesthouse Ritten, Bolzano, Italy noa* – network of architecture Photography by Alex Filz

We never saw the building that this replaced, a familiar and popular town-centre family inn, but the new building is a little hard to describe. Its architects use words such as “elegant Art Nouveau… simplified form… generous, classic, simple, but not sober”. Yes, the architects reference local characteristics such as arches, hipped roofs, stucco, and then add a couple of new bits. Adjectives can be subjective, but words like ‘quirky, ungainly, and puzzling’ spring to our own mind. Let’s just leave it at ‘unusual’ and move inside.

Gloriette joins that wonderful European tradition of modest, family-run inns that offer plentiful amenities in a comfortable yet unostentatious package. There are four storeys plus attic level, and a parking garage in the basement (which provides a terrace platform on the view side of the site).

The arched rear facade shelters guestroom balconies, the ground-floor public and dining areas look out to the garden, and the roof holds the spa, complete with a cantilevered tubular dipping pool that reaches out towards the view. The interior design is contemporary, plush and chic, with numerous details that merge into something of a formal theme throughout the public and private spaces of the hotel. Soft textiles, fireplaces, black metal frames, high-spec lighting fixtures, etcetera, run through Gloriette in a cohesive manner. Pleasing tones of olive and plum accent a generally

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restrained palette, with abundant unstained timber and veneer

The top-floor spa clearly means to add a final flourish to the place, and

woods adding posh warmth. Occasional furniture pieces are well

the little spa pool is obviously a bit of excitement. Commencing under

chosen, and quietly enhance the mood. The bathrooms open to

a barrel-vaulted tunnel, you splash your way towards the front edge

the rooms through glass or heavy curtains, and are themselves

with vertiginous bravery, then soak there under an overhead lattice

wonderful exercises in detailed cabinetry design. The interior design

of crisscrossed metal rods. Looking out over the mountains in the right

eschews the eclecticism of the architectural shell to present a very

lighting conditions, this arbour is a worthy node for a spot of dreaming.

clear aesthetic mode; Gloriette is awfully nice on the inside. You

Gloriette may be a hotchpotch of things, but most of them are rather

can easily believe return guests loyally patronise the place on an

nice, indeed.Â

annual or seasonal basis.Â