Archisphere

Hotel Schani, Vienna

Vienna’s Hotel Schani provides a place for encounters: The digital avant-garde and Viennese comfort and atmosphere meet here, as do cosmopolitan broad-mindedness and a local foundation, individual travel and group work, leisure time and business, ecological, forward-looking architecture and a firm connection to history and location. The hotel with an innovative spirit—designed and realized by Archisphere—opened in April 2015, and in 2019 a rooftop event space was added.

While everybody talks about digitalization, it’s reality at Hotel Schani, located behind Vienna’s main railway station. From booking to check-in, room keys, the bill and payment are all electronic. This family-run hotel is a center for work (in the coworking space) and life (in an inspiring Viennese environment). The connection to the region and history is taken seriously in every part of Schani, which has received widespread attention in the media. The building’s façade, for instance, is an architectural interpretation of the famous rattan pattern that Michael Thonet developed for his bentwood chairs in the mid-19th century. As is well known, this was an essential part of the now iconic piece of furniture in Viennese coffeehouses around the fin de siècle. The Schani’s interior design makes reference to the chair motif in the form of the sofas in its rooms and window-side coffeehouse tables. The grocery-store shelf in the lobby and a version of traditional Viennese cement tiles represent further noteworthy features relating to the location. A mixture of plywood, varnished piping, selected textiles and brass fittings reinforce the interior’s unique character. Despite their relatively small size, the rooms feel spacious, thanks to the open-plan bathrooms in particular. Archisphere developed a unique room type, the two-story studios on the top floor that accommodate four. Even higher—on the roof—an extremely modern event space was set up: Two rooms that can be used separately and a terrace provide breathtaking views of the surrounding Sonnwendviertel. All that isn’t the only proof that Hotel Schani has set its sights high. This is a hotel that, by looking back at the past and ahead into the future at the same time, has its finger on the pulse of time.