Art Hotels

The pavilions stand on the Derwent River at Berriedale, on the same peninsula as the Museum of Old and New Art. They are named after architects and artists who worked on the site, and each one is fitted out as a self-contained apartment with a kitchen, a bath overlooking the water and pieces from the collection on the walls. Glass runs the length of the river side, so the water, the vineyard and the museum entrance are all in view.

Guests get access to the museum, and the ferry from Brooke Street Pier in central Hobart lands at the bottom of the site. Cellar door, restaurants and a bar sit within the grounds, which means you can arrive by boat and stay put. The museum's programme runs into the evening in summer and again in winter for Dark Mofo. Staying here turns MONA from a day trip into the reason you came.

Nishi is the timber-and-glass block at the centre of the NewActon precinct, and the hotel occupies part of it. The lobby staircase, made by March Studio from recycled timber offcuts, is the piece everyone photographs, and the interiors carry the same reuse logic through the corridors and rooms. Furniture is mismatched on purpose, with Australian design pieces and second-hand finds sitting in the same room.

The precinct around it holds a cinema, a bookshop, restaurants and a courtyard, and Lake Burley Griffin is a short walk away. The National Gallery, the portrait gallery and the parliamentary triangle are all within a walk or a very short ride. Breakfast and the evening drinks hour are included, which is unusual in this city. For a capital better known for concrete, this is the building people travel to look at.

Jackalope sits on a working vineyard at Merricks North, about ninety minutes from Melbourne. The building is long, dark and low, and the sculpture at the entrance, by Emily Floyd, gives the place its name. Inside, the lobby is dominated by a kinetic installation of glass flasks and copper tubing that reads as a distillation machine. Rooms face the vines, with dark walls and a wide window doing most of the work.

There is a pool that runs along the edge of the vineyard, a spa, and two dining rooms, one of them formal. The peninsula around it holds cellar doors, hot springs and surf beaches within a short drive. Compared with the city entries in this section, Jackalope is the one where the art was commissioned for the site and cannot be moved. Evenings are dark and quiet, which is the intention.

The Old Clare occupies two heritage buildings in Chippendale: the corner pub that gave it its name and the brewery's former head office next door. The conversion left the tiling, the stairwells and the brick where it was, then dropped contemporary rooms inside. Corridors change character as you cross from one building to the other, and no two room types are laid out the same way.

A pool sits on the roof, looking across to the Central Park building with its cantilevered garden. Downstairs the tenancies have hosted some of Sydney's better-known kitchens, and the White Rabbit Gallery is a two-minute walk. Central station is close enough that a car is a liability rather than a help. Of the Sydney entries here, this is the one where the building's earlier life is still doing the talking.

Halcyon House stands directly opposite the beach at Cabarita, between Byron Bay and the Gold Coast. The bones are those of a mid-century motel, and the rooms still open onto a courtyard the way a motel does. The interiors, by Anna Spiro, layer printed fabric, painted timber and blue-and-white tile until no two rooms match. The scale stays small, and the ocean is across the road rather than behind a resort wall.

There is a pool in the courtyard, a spa, and a dining room that has held a serious reputation since the hotel reopened. Cabarita itself is a surf town with a headland walk and a patrolled beach. Gold Coast airport is close, which makes this the easiest coastal entry in the section to reach by air. Of everything listed here, it is the one where pattern, not architecture, carries the design argument.

The Calile sits on James Street in Fortitude Valley, and it was designed by Richards & Spence for a subtropical city rather than a generic one. Concrete arches, breezeways and planted terraces do the cooling, and rooms open to the outside air instead of sealing against it. The pool deck on the first floor is the centre of the building, with cabanas along one side and the street below.

Ground level is given over to shops, a bar and dining rooms, which keeps the hotel part of the street rather than separate from it. The Valley's galleries, live music rooms and restaurants are within a walk, and the CBD is a short ride. In a section full of conversions, this is the entry that was drawn from scratch for its climate. It also settles the question of what a Brisbane hotel should feel like in February.

QT Melbourne is on Russell Street, inside the theatre and laneway end of the city grid. The interiors lean on the building's industrial shell, with raw concrete, brass, patterned tile and heavy fabric layered over it. The lift plays its own soundtrack, the corridors are dark on purpose, and the rooms are fitted with pieces that would not appear in a chain hotel. It is theatrical, and it does not pretend otherwise.

A rooftop bar sits above the building with a view across the grid towards the Yarra, and the main restaurant runs off the lobby. Trams pass the door and the laneways, galleries and theatres are all within a few blocks. Among the city entries in this section, this is the one where the design is loudest and the location tightest. It suits people who want to walk out of the lobby and straight into a show.