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Entry 1: Hotel Jules & Jim
Le Marais, Paris, France
Truffaut's film gave this Marais hotel its name. The site gave it its shape: three buildings set around paved courtyards, with 23 rooms spread between them. Compact singles fill the main block. Larger rooms sit under the roofs or across two levels.
Art comes in through the ground floor. Every few weeks the lobby and bar change their walls, hanging painters, photographers and graphic artists in shows arranged with an outside art agency. A glass-roofed courtyard and an outdoor fireplace keep the bar busy, and plenty of the people in it live nearby rather than upstairs.
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Entry 2: The Alexander
Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Downtown Indianapolis holds a museum-curated collection inside a working hotel. The Alexander's art programme was assembled with the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, and it runs to more than sixty pieces. Fourteen were commissioned for particular spots in the building.
Among them: Jorge Pardo's ninety-nine hand-moulded acrylic lamps, Alyson Shotz's iridescent sculpture Standing Wave, and Paul Villinski's flock of birds cut from old vinyl records. Even the guest car park joined in, with murals by the British street artist Nick Walker. A full renovation later moved the hotel into Marriott's Autograph Collection. The art stayed at the centre of it.
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Entry 3: The Nines
Portland, Oregon, United States
Portland's 1909 Meier & Frank department store is a white terracotta landmark on Pioneer Courthouse Square. The Nines occupies its upper floors. Rooms ring a tall central atrium, and a restaurant and lounge sit at the top of the building.
Over four hundred commissioned works hang here, almost all by artists from the region. Paige Powell, a Portland native who spent years in the New York art world, curated the collection. The library is where it feels densest, with pieces by filmmaker Gus Van Sant and cartoonist John Callahan. Guest rooms carry originals made through a partnership with the Pacific Northwest College of Art.