Design is on display in New York’s luxury hotels, where the interior look and feel is as important as where it’s located. From the lobbies that welcome guests on their first steps into the building to the bars and dining areas later at night, some of a hotel’s best design work lays outside the guests’ rooms. Here are just a few of our favorite hotel interiors.

Dream Downtown

Image © Handel Architects

The Dream Downtown was originally built in the 1960s for the Maritime Union, with a series of portholes constructed in the main facade to match the nautical theme. In 2011, a redesign and conversion ditched the sailing theme but the portholes remained, causing a few publications to dub the new Dream Downtown hotel “The Cheesegrater” (the hotel owned up to the name by making their own cheesegraters). Handel Architects handled the redesign, and they copied the porthole look all over the interior design. A cheesegrater-based design may sound goofy, but anything that led to this perfect dining area can’t be too wrong.

Dream Downtown
Meatpacking District
355 W 16th Street
New York, NY 10011

Conrad New York

The Conrad Hilton in Battery Park City prides itself on its collection of artwork by the legendary minimalist Sol LeWitt. Item #1 in their collection is this 100 x 80′ wall drawing by LeWitt, called “Loopy Doopy (Blue and Purple),” which towers over the lobby area. The lighting and decorations around the lobby and interior hallways match the artwork so well that every corner of the hotel seems to have another great angle on LeWitt’s giant art piece.

The Conrad
Tribeca
102 North End Avenue
New York, NY 10282

Citizen M

We’ve written about Citizen M’s retro-modern style before, and the lobby is an even more striking example of that look than the rooms. Dozens of colors and materials combine to make this energetic lobby that looks a little bit like an alien planet’s take on ’70s chic.

Citizen M
Times Square
218 West 50th Street
New York, NY 10019

The Hudson

Philippe Starck designed this reception area and much of the rest of The Hudson New York, a hotel in Hell’s Kitchen. The building was originally built in the 1920s by J.P. Morgan’s daughter Anne, as a women’s club. A hundred years later, men are now allowed in, and the hotel has this gorgeous reception area where a modern escalator leads into the hardwood and hunting trophies of a ski lodge.

The Hudson
Columbus Circle
356 W 58th Street
New York, NY 10019

Essex House

The famous JW Marriott Essex House, with its name proudly indicated in neon on top of the building, has the art deco style and classic looks you would expect in a hotel with so much history and lineage. It started construction the day after the 1929 stock market crash, and it has remained open ever since. The marble, quality of wood, and chandeliers speak to a timeless kind of luxury that the younger hotels on this list don’t have.

Essex House
160 Central Park South
New York, NY 10019

Lead image: Hudson Hotel