Rosewood Munich opened its grand baroque doors in October 2023. This is global hotel brand Rosewood's newest offering, located in the heart of the old town, on the historic Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße near Marienplatz. The venue unfolds across two historic buildings combining original baroque and rococo architecture from the 18th and 19th centuries and a very contemporary vision of the hotel as a sprawling, luxuriant living room. Comfortable yet elegant interiors by designer Tara Bernerd capture both the 'effortlessly chic' lifestyle of Munich today and the craft traditions of Bavaria.
Step inside Rosewood Munich
The experience of the Tardis-like hotel begins in the grand entrance lobby with its sweeping double staircase, vaulted ceiling and frescos. Munich-based architecture practice Hilmer Sattler Architekten Ahlers has restored and redesigned the former State Bank of Bavaria and Palais Neuhaus-Preysing creating 73 rooms, 59 suites, and five unique ‘houses’, all set around two interior courtyards, cultivating a private residential feeling. In the Palais, decorative interiors of the formal event rooms were preserved using historic techniques such as cleaning the gold leaf gilding with a dried crust of black bread.
Amidst chequered marble floors and a variety of room types, Bernerd established a warm, adaptable interior DNA of organic shapes, simple geometries, grounding neutrals and rich jewel tones from turquoise to ochre. Elegant nods to the locale in the rooms include the forest green loden sofas and smoothly intuitive ‘personal bars’ in green lacquer, timber, stone and antique brass, warm to the touch and reminiscent of the traditional Bavarian ’schrank’. The largest of the premier suites, King Maximilian I House, is an aspirational apartment stretching beneath the eaves of the Palais layered with luxurious materials; a dynamic fireplace of celadon and grey-coloured stones, mirrors and brass divides the open plan living space, and modern yet decorative sage green 3D tiles clad the chef’s kitchen.
Bernerd describes the quality of craftsmanship in Munich as ‘impeccable’; whether in LA (see the Conrad Los Angeles), Shibuya Tokyo, or the Yucatan Peninsula (Maroma), her hotel interiors are always informed by local materials, craft and culture. She compares hotel design to ‘theatre’ – 'from the interaction with people, to the palette and the moment, it’s a real privilege if you get it right,' she says.
The ‘performance’ at Rosewood Munich is already in full swing as we sit in the chic ground floor Wintergarten the morning after the hotel’s buzzy opening party. This is the social heart of the hotel, between the Modern Bavarian restaurant Brasserie Cuvilliés and live music cocktail haunt Bar Montez, both designed by local interior studio Dippold. Both have their own street entrances (very separate from the main entrance, as the hotel spans most of an Old Town block) which Roland Dürr, managing director at Rosewood Munich, who has launched Rosewoods in New York and Abu Dhabi, says was important to situating the hotel at the heart of Munich’s sophisticated social life.
Capturing the ‘sense of place’ through attention to locally inspired detail is at the core of the Rosewood philosophy. It’s what keeps the brand grounded amidst the pace of 32-and-counting properties across the world, such as the Carlyle in New York and Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, a busy schedule of upcoming hotels – including the anticipated London opening of The Chancery Rosewood in the former US Embassy on Grosvenor Square in 2025 – and the growing global Asaya spa brand (Munich hosts the sixth, with an exquisite subterranean wellbeing centre stocked with curated, innovative products from OTO and Vyrao).
Here in Munich, that detail can be seen in the hotel ‘stamp’ inspired by the city’s heritage; the bespoke ‘House branded’ Nymphenburg porcelain; the regional culinary delights (Alpine caviar, Bavarian rice, ‘Teygu’ beef from Tegernsee, fresh fish from the grounds of sister hotel Rosewood Schloss Fuschl in Austria which opens in 2024). From the handsome interiors, to the bright hotel team, the stylish crowd and right down to the tiniest of details, the stage has been set at Munich Rosewood for a truly immersive theatre.
