Ku' Damm 101, Berlin, Germany
Hotel Overview
Review of Ku' Damm 101, by Jeroen Bergmans
Funky, fun and excellent value, Ku' Damm 101 is a Berlin design hotel that appeals to businessmen, club kids, musicians and architects alike. The zebrano-wood reception desk, circular lobby bar and illuminated columns are straight out of an episode of Star Trek, and the palette of light blues and greys is bright and modern but also warm and welcoming.
The facilities
Ku' Damm 101 has no room-service, but there is a vending machine for snacks and the design hotel's circular lobby bar dispenses cocktails, health drinks, sandwiches and finger-food until midnight to a soundtrack of groovy tunes. Beside it, the 'Landscape Room' is lined with bookcases packed with design books. It often serves as an exhibition space for art and architecture students, and as it has a laptop with free internet access, it is also used for informal meetings. A bijou landscaped garden behind it is a popular sun-trap in the summer months and leads down to Ku' Damm 101's large private car park.
The breakfast room and several conference spaces span the top floor which has expansive views over Berlin. The design hotel's basement is solely devoted to its spa which has a steam room, sauna and a treatment room for Shiatsu massage and Gua Sha. There are also regular sessions of Hatha Yoga and Power Yoga.
Ku' Damm is one of the few hotels in Berlin that is fully adapted to guests with disabilities. Some rooms have been specially designed to suit their needs and corridors have brush signage for the blind.
The rooms
The design hotel's 170 rooms come in three categories. All have under-floor heating and the same, simple but space-age design with TVs housed in wooden cubes and heavenly beds identical to those in uber-luxury Berlin behemoth The Adlon. Rooms on some of the floors are strictly no-smoking.
Facilities
Rooms
170Come for...
- Comfortable functionalism
- Good breakfasts
- Shopping and bars on the Kurfurstendamm
Not Suitable for...
- Traditionalists
- Those used to the full-frills, five-star experience
- A location in striking distance of trendy Mitte and Kreuzberg
Children
Extra beds and baby-sitting services available on request.Eating in
In the evening the bar offers good, hot, well-priced bar snacks.The Press Say
"Ku'damm 101 does the crossover between club and hotel far better than hotels in New York or Miami. In the desirable Wilmersdorf area, it has large loft-style rooms with colour schemes varying by floor according to Le Corbusier's colour series." Guardian 07Reviews
Review of Ku'damm 101, by Caroline Major
Perhaps it's the high-gloss grey resin on the floor of the breakfast room of this Berlin design hotel that gives it an institutional air. Or maybe it's the hospital-style trolleys laden with healthy breakfast food that cause NHS flashbacks. However, Ku'damm 101 manages to combine practical function with late 20th-century design in a successful pastiche.
All in all, another day in 1984. Perfect for the pragmatic business traveller interested in comfortable functionalism.
The facilities
The wide, soundless corridors of Ku'damm 101 are now adorned with larger-than-life 70s-style numbering and dim, emergency exit-like lighting in pink. All the pointers say design hotel but at some deep, internal level the public spaces suggest a futuristic airport or maybe even a secret, high-tech research lab. It's even easy to imagine oneself on board a spaceship inside this 170-room behemoth. In fact, this is a disused office block, now reconceptualised. What a trick from the Swiss Design couple who have engineered this spacious, shining and standout conversion.
The rooms
The greyscale colour palette at work in this design hotel continues into the rooms with built in white tiled bathrooms. Lots of windows, shielded with sheer white drapes, soften the grey roller shutters that whir smoothly over the exterior, putting full daylight or complete darkness at your control. Crisp white linen with hypoallergenic pillows ensure you wake in the Ku'damm 101 fresh and alert for the next day. Splashes of pink, pastel green or violet blue make sensitive focal points in the room and guests are encouraged to move the furniture to configure the room for personal comfort.