Hotels and restaurants in Switzerland: who chooses the art, and what each space needs

A mid-sized, Zürich-led pipeline of about 60 upper-segment projects, where the art is chosen by the owner or the interior designer, not a procurement agent. TOPHOTELPROJECTS counted at least 59 upper-segment projects with 6,592 keys on 5 December 2023: 41 upscale and 18 luxury ¹⁰⁰. Zürich led with at least seven projects, followed by Geneva, Scuol and Zermatt with three each; the largest project was Tribe Zurich Airport at 220 rooms, due 2026 ¹⁰⁰.

What opened is mostly small. Mama Shelter opened on 31 July 2025 in Zürich-Oerlikon with 178 rooms and Moxy Zürich Letzigrund in December 2025 with 162 rooms; the rest of Watson's January 2026 round-up runs from Dent Blanche Resorts in Hérémence (144 rooms) down to the 11-room Nînda in Haute-Nendaz, and none of the entries mentions art ¹⁰³. Zürich Tourism lists Lalique's 13-room Villa Florhof (opened 1 August 2026) and Althoff's 173-room Urban Loft (planned 2028) ¹⁰⁴. In Geneva, Jumeirah bought Le Richemond in February 2023; in September 2026 it was still a refurbishment in progress with 83 rooms and a USD 40 million budget ¹¹³¹¹⁴.

In the eight art hotels finews.ch profiled in January 2024, curation was done by owners or architects: the Schwarzenbach family at the Dolder Grand, architect Tilla Theus at the Widder Hotel Zürich and owner Ruedi Bechtler at Hotel Castell Zuoz ¹⁹⁰. Where a designer leads, the designer is usually foreign: Tristan Auer (Paris) at the Mandarin Oriental Savoy, Stylt Trampoli (Gothenburg) at The Home Hotel, Checa Woid (Munich) at the Renaissance Zurich Tower, AW² (Paris) at Six Senses Crans-Montana and MKV Design at the Bürgenstock Palace Hotel ^{105109188110158}. The one external art consultant documented, Markus Hilzinger of Berlin, produced the 2016 concept for the AMERON Swiss Mountain Hotel Davos: oil paintings, woodcuts, paper cuts, ceramics and sculpture on Swiss craft, Alpine landscape, winter sport and local people, several made as unique commissions ¹⁹¹. No Swiss FF&E procurement firm or art consultancy was named as placing the art order in the hotels reviewed, so a supplier's counterpart is the owner or the designer; this is an inference from a press-selected sample ^190188191.

One or two large works at the front desk and in the public rooms, calm work in the bedrooms, and a corridor series that varies by floor. Behind reception is where the documented hotels put their largest piece: a Bosco Sodi diptych at the Alpina Gstaad, and at the Dolder Grand a Warhol 'Big Retrospective Painting' reported behind the front desk in press coverage ^87108152. The Dolder says most of its roughly 100 works hang in public areas, with Dalí at the restaurant entrance and Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely on the spa pathway ¹⁰⁷. A single work of 200 cm and above is the reception register; iHomeArt lists 106 panoramic works and paints any work larger than its listed sizes on request.

Guest rooms are mid-sized and the window competes with the wall. Six Senses Crans-Montana's Terrace Rooms are 46–52 m² inside and its suites 71–87 m²; the fact sheet lists 'local artwork' among the finishes, and designer AW² lined the rooms in rough timber planks and stone-coloured render with full-width windows to the slopes ¹⁹²¹¹⁰. Which suggests one hanging position per room, the headboard wall or the wall facing the bed, for a work of roughly 120–160 cm wide (our inference).

Repetition without two rooms matching is the documented Swiss habit. Hotel Schweizerhof Luzern gave each of its 101 rooms and suites a distinct wall 'tattoo', a quotation or graphic tied to a former guest's story, in its CHF 10 million renovation of 2014 ¹⁸⁹. Hotel Monopol St. Moritz dedicates each floor to one artist, with originals on the ground floor, basement and sixth floor and lithographs between ¹⁹⁰. Der Teufelhof Basel runs eight rooms and one suite as whole-room artist installations under curator Jean-Claude Freymond-Guth ¹⁹⁵. This is where painting to order fits: iHomeArt paints each work to order with palette changes and variations possible, so one motif can run through a floor in four or five palettes without two rooms matching.

Corridors carry the leanest budgets. The Renaissance Zurich Tower renovated all 300 rooms, suites and corridors between October 2024 and mid-March 2025, and its art programme is 20 large-format graphics by Zürich artist Martin Wanner in the corridors of every floor, roughly one work per 15 keys (our arithmetic); the report names no artwork for the rooms ¹⁸⁸. Spas are large: Bürgenstock's Alpine Spa is 10,000 m² and Six Senses Crans-Montana's 2,000 m² ¹¹¹¹¹⁰.

Named artists and heritage objects in the grand hotels, rotating gallery shows in two art hotels, and nothing documented for the new mid-market openings. The Mandarin Oriental Savoy runs the Savoy Brasserie & Bar, ORSINI, the Mandarin Lounge and the 1838 Rooftop Bar ¹⁰⁵¹¹⁷. Hotel press copy relayed by Hospitality Design places works by German artist Angela Glajcar in the Savoy Brasserie and says about 90% of the design elements were made in Switzerland; the page could not be opened, so treat both as the hotel's own account ¹⁰⁶. The Alpina Gstaad's pink Tracey Emin neon hangs above the lounge DJ area ⁸⁷. Volkshaus Basel's bar has Imi Knoebel glass windows and Galerie von Bartha stages four to five exhibitions a year in the house; Villa Castagnola in Lugano shows two artists a year in its Art Gallery Arté beside 17th-century Aubusson tapestries ¹⁹⁰.

Standalone F&B in Zürich is opening at scale: Restaurant Bergstube (October 2025) seats up to 150 in four dining rooms and the NZZ Bar (13 August 2026) about 60 ¹⁰⁴. Restaurant revenues fell 6.9% in Q3 2025 while hotel revenues rose 4.9%, which may mean tighter budgets for standalone restaurants than for hotel outlets (inference) ¹¹⁶. The formats are our inference: a horizontal of 150–200 cm above a banquette and a vertical or a pair on the bar back, in palettes that read against walnut, brass and timber ¹¹⁷¹¹⁰.

A lead time that fits the closure window, one-piece flexibility for small properties, a price between retail and the local studio, and documentation. Closures are short: the Renaissance Zurich Tower renovated 300 keys from October 2024 to mid-March 2025, and the Schweizerhof Luzern took 15 months for 101 rooms ¹⁸⁸¹⁸⁹. A commission studio marketing to Zürich and Basel clients quotes about 21 days for acrylic and 14–30 days for oil plus 3–5 business days for framing and shipping, against a 70% deposit ¹. iHomeArt's verified schedule is about one week to paint plus 3–7 days transit, 10–13 days door to door, with progress photos or video and stage-by-stage approval; the minimum order is one piece, with volume pricing from ten.

Price is the gap. Locally a 2 m original costs CHF 5,000–8,500 for 240 × 140 cm from a Zürich studio or CHF 5,250 for 200 × 200 cm from a Lucerne studio (2026) ²¹²⁸. At retail, Pfister's largest hand-painted original is a 150 × 118 cm acrylic at CHF 899 (September 2026), and KUNSTLOFT's Swiss site lists XXL oils at 'from' CHF 819–1,079 on its first page for base sizes, rising with size, with a size filter reaching 200 cm ¹³⁹¹⁴². The nearest domestic analogue, EDELSTOCK in Zwillikon, hand-paints XXL canvases to the client's size, colour and texture for hotels, bars and spas but publishes no prices ¹⁹⁹. Among the channels checked, the band between the CHF 899 retail ceiling and the CHF 5,000 studio floor for a 2 m work is thinly served; that is where an imported made-to-order original sits, and iHomeArt publishes no prices but quotes within one business day.

Terms follow local habits: two Swiss interior-design firms' conditions require written order confirmation, 30–50% deposits, net-30-day invoices and no returns on custom-made goods ³¹³². iHomeArt ships rolled, stretched or framed (gold, silver, black, white or wood), free and insured by DHL, FedEx or USPS, with every piece signed by the artist and certified; a rolled canvas can be stretched locally at the framer rates on the supply page ²⁹.

The cuts follow the rooms in the evidence, not a national taste. The Alpine hotels documented are envelopes of rough timber, stone-coloured render, oak and leather, and the Davos concept was themed on Alpine landscape, winter sport and local people ^110158191; the city hotels are walnut and brass at the Savoy and Dada-themed stone, wood and glass at The Home Hotel ¹¹⁷¹⁰⁹. Matte, textured work for the first and high-contrast or gold-toned work for the second is a design inference. Landscape and lake cuts are painted views for the guest room and spa, where Six Senses lists 'local artwork' among its finishes ¹⁹².